The United States' top intelligence agency, Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) says that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) is the most dangerous and deadly extremist organization in the
world. The official website of FBI in its tops story said that LTTE is
far more dangerous terrorists outfit than al Queda, Hezbullah or even
HAMAS. Read more...

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Sunday, 10 April 2011 10:01 AM

Incident-free
World Cup cricket matches prove annihilation of Tigers

The CPAs Culture
of Impunity - By C. A. Chandraprema - About
two weeks ago, we revealed that the Center for Policy Alternatives had
received huge sums of money to monitor the presidential and
parliamentary elections of 2010. According to our information, the CPA
had got funds amounting to Rs. 51 million to monitor the presidential
election alone. The breakdown of what they had received was as
follows. Rs 20.6 million from the Netherlands government; Rs. 22.4
million from the German government; Rs. 3 million from the British
government; Rs. 5 million from the US government; We pointed out that
this was just according to information available to us and they could
have got more. In addition to the above, we received information that
they had got Rs. 13 million from the Netherlands government for the
parliamentary election in addition to another Rs. 5 million from the
US government, bringing it up to Rs. 18 million for the parliamentary
election. Once again, this is not an exhaustive list and they could
have got more money. We posed certain questions about how this money
had been spent. Its now almost two weeks since we published the
queries on the front page of this newspaper but nary a word have we
heard from the CPA! All that we have is a studied silence from the
other end. Yet these are the very people who preach to the nation
about transparency, accountability and the need to eliminate the
culture of impunity! People who preach such virtues should not only be
above board but also be seen to be above board. We never said it was
wrong to get money from foreign governments; nor did we say that it
was wrong to monitor elections. All we wanted to know was how the
funds had been spent. Being individuals of great moral probity as they
would have us believe, we waited patiently in our office for an
official from the CPA to turn up with a little cart full of files and
tell us, "Look, you have been asking questions; well here are the
answers!" They could have told us, "This is what we paid the
men and women we hired for monitoring purposes per day, the number of
man/days served was this much, the traveling and meal allowances given
to each monitor was this much, this is what the supervisors and other
administrative staff got, food and accommodation for X number of
supervisors cost this much per person, we spent this much to hire
vehicles from such and such a place, the administrative staff based in
Colombo was paid this much for the duration of the project, the number
of TV spots and newspaper advertisements inserted cost this much, the
total spent was X amount ." (Island
: 31 March 2011).

NCCT calls
Conservatives racist - by Asoka
Weerasinghe, Canada - Hon. Jason Kenney, MP, Minister of Citizenship
& Immigration and Multiculturalism Paul Calandra, Conservative MP
for Markham-Oakridge and & Patrick Brown, Conservative MP for
Barrie House of Commons, Ottawa; Well well well Dear Jason
& Paul & Patrick: What the heck is going on? What went wrong
with your friendship with the National Canadian Council for Tamils (
NCCT) who have lambasted you Conservatives as a bunch of racists.
Their Press Release of March 29, 2011 says: National Council of
Canadian Tamils condemns racist Conservative Party
advertisement. This is after Paul Calandra doing the Conservative
honours to that bunch by cutting the ribbon to ceremonially open their
Headquarters almost two months ago at Finch Avenue, in Toronto. And I
questioned you Conservatives for participating in that event then and
with that incident you Conservatives lost my vote (LankaWeb
: 31 March 2011).

Incident-free
WC cricket matches prove annihilation of Tigers
- Had the LTTE retained at least one per cent of its military
capability, it would have certainly staged an attack during the World
Cup Cricket qualifying matches played in Sri Lanka, says Sri Lankas
No 2 at the UN Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva. Even a minor incident
could have embarrassed the country and strengthened those seeking to
undermine post-war recovery effort, the soldier says.
"Presence of international print and electronic media in Colombo
especially for cricket coverage could have caused chaos," the
diplomat said. In a brief interview with The Island on Thursday
(Mar. 31), Maj. Gen. Silva said that those who believed that the LTTE
would launch at least hit and run attacks would have been really
disappointed by the incident-free matches. The bottom line was that
the LTTE military machine had been wiped out and its leadership either
killed, in custody or taking refuge overseas, the former General
Officer Commanding (GOC) of 58 Division said. Responding to a
query, the Gajaba veteran said that having realized the LTTE rump
couldnt even cause a minor incident, some pro-LTTE website
declared, in the run-up to the semi-final between Sri Lanka and
England in Colombo, that gunmen had targeted an army convoy in the
East. Military convoys, the Maj. Gen. said was a thing of the past and
nothing could be as foolish as ongoing attempts to offset battle-field
rout through planting news items. Maj. Gen. de Silvas
Division led the final assault on the LTTE Vanni east front, where the
enemy groupings, including its top leadership were wiped out. Sri
Lanka declared end of combat operations on May 19, 2009. A
victory for Kumar Sangakkaras team at Saturdays final against
India in Mumbai would be a tribute to those who made the supreme
sacrifice in the war against terrorism, Maj. Gen Silva said. The
New York based diplomat said that the ICC denied Pakistan an
opportunity to host at least one match citing security concerns. Had
the SL armed forces failed in their mission, we, too, would have
experienced the same fate, the Maj. Gen. said. "What we have
achieved was unthinkable. At the last edition of World Cup cricket in
early 2007, LTTE fixed wing aircraft caused mayhem by dropping bombs
at Kolonnawa and Muthurajawela. And we were still fighting in the
East, while facing the LTTE which had the Vanni under its
control," he said. President Rajapaksa was away in Barbados
to watch the final between Sri Lanka and Australia when the government
was forced to switch off power in the entire country due to LTTE
attack, Maj. Gen. Silva said. But within four years, under the
leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the country had triumphed
over terrorism, he said, adding that the entire nation would be free
watch Saturdays encounter without expecting any trouble (Island
: 31 March 2011).

Govt. to
release rehabilitated ex-combatants -
Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe
said yesterday that 206 rehabilitated ex-combatants would be released
on Friday (1). This batch consisted of 205 men and one female, he
said. He told Tamil Mirror Online that these former LTTE cadres
would be released at a ceremony which would be held at the Vavuniya
Cultural Hall on April 1 under the patronage of Rehabilitation and
Prisons Reforms Minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera. Another large
number of former LTTE cadres were due to be released in concurrence
with the upcoming Sinhala-Tamil New Year, Brigadier Ranasinghe added.
Meanwhile, an exhibition of paintings by former militants undergoing
rehabilitation would be held on April 25 and 26 at the National Art
Gallery in Colombo (Daily
Mirror ; 31 March 2011).

Be vigilant on LTTE
activities, GL urges EU - External Affairs
Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris urged European countries to remain
vigilant regarding LTTE activities in their territories stating that
the LTTE was a threat not only to Sri Lanka, but also for the security
of Europe as recognized by Europol. The Minister made this point
during a discussion with the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the
Czech Republic, Jiri Sedivy at the Ministry of Defence of the Czech
Republic during his official visit there, the Foreign Ministry
said. Minister Sedivy welcomed the end of terrorism in Sri
Lanka, and was of the view that both Sri Lanka and the Czech Republic
had successfully managed major internal transformations in recent
years. Sri Lankas post-conflict progress was impressive
resulting in a positive outlook for the country. Minister Peiris
informed the Czech Minister about the challenges still posed
internationally by the remnants of the LTTE including Europe. Minister
Sedivy had appreciated the briefing by Minister Peiris on the
important process of reconciliation that Sri Lanka have initiated, as
well as the overview of the ongoing political talks with a view to
arriving at a long-term negotiated solution. The two sides ended
their discussion with an exchange of views on current conflict
situations in the world (Daily
Mirror ; 31 March 2011).

"Peg Leg Shankar"
wanted by Interpol - Interpol has issued an
arrest warrant for a British man accused of running the human
smuggling network that sent 76 Sri Lankans to Canada aboard a cargo
ship in 2009. Shanmugasundaram Kanthaskaran, 40, is wanted by Sri
Lankan authorities for "people smuggling, trafficking and illegal
immigration" as well as "terrorism," according to the
Interpol website. While the public Interpol notice is vague,
classified details of the allegations obtained by the National Post
show he is wanted in connection with the human smuggling vessel Ocean
Lady. A confidential Sri Lankan government report says Mr.
Kanthaskaran, also known as "Peg Leg Shankar," was born in
Sri Lanka, holds a British passport and operates from the U.K.,
Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. "The subject has
established an effective network covering South Asian countries to run
the human smuggling operations," it says, adding he organized the
Ocean Lady smuggling run with a Canadian named Ravi Shanker. According
to the report, Mr. Kanthaskaran was a member of the Sea Tigers, the
naval wing of the Tamil Tigers rebels. After his leg was
amputated following a clash with government forces, he moved to
London, where he was allegedly involved in procurement. Using a ship
called the Princess Easwary, he smuggled weapons to Sri Lanka from
North Korea, the report says. The ship was transporting military
hardware to the island in May 2009 when the civil war ended, it says.
After hearing that Tamil rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was dead,
the ship's crew dumped their cargo into the waters off Indonesia. Mr.
Kanthasakaran then began organizing a human smuggling voyage to
Canada, it says. The ship, which was registered in Cambodia,
changed its name to Ocean Lady and sailed from India with a stop in
Malaysia, arriving off the British Columbia coast in October 2009
carrying 76 Sri Lankans. All have claimed refugee status. Ten
months later, a larger ship, the MV Sun Sea, reached Canada from
Thailand carrying 492 Sri Lankans. Mr. Kanthaskaran's alleged
involvement in human smuggling may explain why Canadian officials such
as Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Vic
Toews have linked the ships to the Tamil Tigers. The Immigration
and Refugee Board has so far ordered the deportation of two of those
on board the Sun Sea on the grounds they had been Sea Tigers. But the
RCMP remains uncertain whether the smuggling ships were a rebel
operation (perhaps to raise money for the cause, or to relocate
members and their families to Canada) or whether remnants of the rebel
group were simply fleeing the region following their defeat (Daily
Mirror : 31 March 2011).

India advised us to
look beyond 13th A: TNA - India has advised
Sri Lankas main Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance
(TNA) to go beyond the 13th Amendment when it holds discussions with
the Sri Lanka government on power devolution, a TNA front-liner said
yesterday. Jaffna District TNA parliamentarian Mavai
Senathirajah said that however at a recent meeting between the TNA and
a government delegation, President Mahinda Rajapaksa had categorically
stated that under no circumstances would police powers be
devolved. At discussions with Indian External Affairs
Minister S.M. Krishna during his visit to Jaffna in February he
advised us to demand something beyond the 13th Amendment from the
Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, he said. Mr. Senathirajah
said as a basis for negotiations the TNA had prepared a paper to be
submitted to the government at the next meeting to be held on April 7
and stressed that Tamils did not have confidence in the 13th Amendment
as a basis for resolving the ethnic issue and neither did it meet the
aspirations of the Tamil community. What we expect is a political
mechanism that devolves power meaningfully and the 13th Amendment
falls far short of what is expected, he said and added that the
successive governments have failed to devolve power even under the
13th Amendment and a good example was land power, which had not been
vested in a single provincial council. Mr. Senathirajah said he
hoped that the ongoing discussions between the government and the TNA
would pave the way for a permanent solution to the ethnic issue and
address the grievances of the Tamils. The government and the TNA had
agreed to meet on April 7 and 27 to further discuss core issues.
We expect to raise the issues regarding the dismantling of High
Security Zones, the release of Tamil detainees from rehabilitation
centres and resettlement. The TNA delegation will submit a
comprehensive report on power devolution at the meeting on April 7,
he said. Mr. Senathirajah said it was a good move on the part of
the government to release particulars of Tamil youth under
rehabilitation. We believe there are about 11,000 youth at
rehabilitation camps and we want the government to release them or
prosecute them as soon as possible if there is tangible evidence
against them, he said and added that discussions held in January,
February and March had not produced spectacular results that met the
aspirations of the Tamil people but it was a good move in the right
direction. The TNA delegation will comprise leader R. Sampanthan, MPs
Suresh Premachandran Mavai Senathirajah, M.S. Sumanthiran and senior
lawyer Kanag Eswaran (Daily
Mirror : 31 March 2011).

Thwarting LTTE's
designs in Europe - Growing terrorist propaganda network: Final
part of the text of the speech by Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Belgium,
Luxembourg and the EU Ravinatha Aryasinha, at the European Corporate
Security Association (ECSA), Brussels on March 23, 2011 This is
regarded as the most significant judicial action related to terrorist
financing that has taken place in Europe. In Norway, in January 2010,
eight LTTE activists including five youth, were indicted for 2009
attack on the Sri Lanka Embassy in Oslo. In Germany, eight LTTE
activists from front organizations including the TCC were arrested on
three occasions in March and May 2010 and three of them have already
been indicted. In the Netherlands, in April 2010, six LTTE activists
from front organizations including the TCC, TRO and the Tamil Youth
Organization (TYO) were arrested. The most recent action was in
Switzerland, where in January 2011, when 10 LTTE activists including
from the TYO were arrested. This is of course in addition to earlier
action in Europe, which includes the conviction in the UK of former
LTTE UK leader and President of the British Tamil Forum A C Shanthan
in 2009 for seeking to purchase duel use technology for the LTTE, in
Italy arrest warrants issued in June 2008 on some 30 LTTE activists,
in Denmark the freezing since 2008 of the assets of TRO-Denmark for
support of the LTTE terrorism and the conviction in France of nine
including V Manoharan who was later to be the head of the CCTF-France
on drug smuggling charges (Daily
News : 31 March 2011).

Interpol
issues warrant for a UK man alleged of smuggling Sri Lankan Tamils to
Canada - The Interpol has issued an arrest
warrant for a Sri Lankan Tamil man in the United Kingdom accused of
running human smuggling operations. The world's international
police organization has issued a Red Notice for Shanmugasundaram
Kanthaskaran, 38, a native of Silavathurai, Sri Lanka. According
to the Intepol, he is wanted for his alleged involvement in people
smuggling, trafficking and illegal immigration, and terrorism.
While the public Interpol notice is vague, Canada's daily National
Post says based on classified details of the allegations obtained by
the newspaper says he is wanted in connection with the human smuggling
vessel Ocean Lady that sent 76 Sri Lankans to Canada aboard a cargo
ship in 2009. Citing a confidential Sri Lankan government
report, the National Post says Mr. Kanthaskaran, also known as
"Peg Leg Shankar," holds a British passport and operates
from the U.K., Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. "The
subject has established an effective network covering South Asian
countries to run the human smuggling operations," the paper
quoted the document adding that the accused organized the Ocean Lady
smuggling run with a Canadian named Ravi Shanker. According to
the report, Mr. Kanthaskaran who was a member of the Sea Tiger unit of
LTTE moved to London after he lost his leg battling government forces.
He was allegedly involved in procuring arms for the rebels. During the
final phase of the war the LTTE operatives in the UK had organized to
smuggle arms on board a ship called Princess Easwary to the cornered
Tiger rebels in Northern Sri Lanka in the guise of humanitarian aid.
The ship was not allowed to sail to Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan
forces decimated the LTTE in Sri Lanka before the ship could reach the
final destination with arms reportedly smuggled from North Korea.
According to the National Post report Mr. Kanthaskaran organized that
arms smuggling operation in May 2009. After the news of Tiger leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran's demise, the ship's crew had dumped their
cargo into the sea off Indonesia. The report says that Mr.
Kanthaskaran then modified the ship, changed its name and used it to
smuggle people from Thailand to Canada. In October 2009, reportedly
the modified ship, MV Ocean Lady brought 76 illegal Sri Lankan
migrants, all males, to British Columbia. MV Sun Sea's human cargo
included 380 men, 63 women, and 49 children. All the migrants have
sought asylum in the country
(Colombo page ; 31 March 2011).

Organised
crime gangs with links to Britain and Sri Lanka are fuelling a
fresh wave of identity fraud in Victoria, with Melbourne's inner
city firming as the latest frontier in card skimming.

Thwarting LTTE's
designs in Europe Growing terrorist propaganda network: Text of the
speech by Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU
Ravinatha Aryasinha, at the European Corporate Security Association
(ECSA), Brussels on March 23, 2011 (Daily
News : 30 March 2011).

Total
number of asylum seekers decline, says UNHCR -
Sri Lanka is back again among the top 10 countries in the world whose
citizens seek asylum, the latest United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) report says. The total number of asylum seekers
across the world had dipped in 2010, it noted. Sri Lanka was in the
list of top 10 countries in 2007, as its Armed Forces began pushing
into LTTE territory in the northern province. In the following two
years, the country was No.12 and No.13 in the list of countries from
where asylum seekers originate. In 2010, as many as 8874 persons from
Sri Lanka sought asylum in 44 developed countries while in 2009, this
number was higher  9988. A total of 3.47 lakh asylum
applications were lodged in 44 developed countries in 2010, marginally
lower than the 3.68 lakh applications that were filed in 2009. A
majority of the applications in both 2009 and 2010 were filed in
Europe  2.87 lakh and 2.69 lakh respectively. Statistics
compiled by the UNHCR have shown a fall in the number of
asylum-seekers in the industrialised world over the last 10 years. On
Monday, UNHCR released the 2010 statistical overview of asylum
applications lodged in Europe and selected non-European countries. In
all, 44 industrialised countries were covered in the report on new
asylum claims. The report, Asylum Levels and Trends in
Industrialised Countries 2010, published by the UN refugee agency,
said that out of the 40 main asylum-seeker nationalities, 15
registered a rise during 2010 amounting to 23,200 claims. This is
significantly less than in 2009 when 23 asylum-seeker nationalities
recorded an increase. The 25 nationalities registering a
decline in 2010 submitted a total of 42,400 claims less than in 2009.
Among the major countries of origin of asylum-seekers, significant
increases were registered from the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia (+599%) and Serbia (+54%). (Hindu
; 30 March 2011).

Remnants
a threat - Sri Lanka has informed the Czech
Republic that there are challenges posed internationally by the
remnants of the LTTE including in Europe and this was still a threat
to Sri Lanka. The Minister of External Affairs, Prof. G.L. Peiris
raised this matter when he met with the First Deputy Minister of
Defense of the Czech Republic, Jiri Sedivy at the Ministry of Defense
of the Czech Republic, the External Affairs Ministry said today.
Minister Sedivy welcomed the end of terrorism in Sri Lanka, and was of
the view that both Sri Lanka and the Czech Republic had successfully
managed major internal transformations in recent years. Sri Lankas
post-conflict progress was impressive resulting in a positive outlook
for the country. Minister Peiris informed the Czech Minister about the
challenges still posed internationally by the remnants of the LTTE
including in Europe. This was a threat not only for Sri Lanka, but
also for the security of Europe as recognized by Europol, and he urged
European countries to remain vigilant regarding LTTE activities in
their territories, the External Affairs Ministry said. Minister Sedivy
appreciated the briefing by Minister Peiris on the important process
of reconciliation that Sri Lanka had initiated, as well as the
overview of the ongoing political talks with a view to arriving at a
long-term negotiated solution (News
now lk ; 30 March 2011).

Pro-Tiger roar loses
its voice - COIMBATORE: Just one-and-a-half
years ago, a pro-Tiger roar echoed on poll platforms across the state
as the war in Sri Lanka and the plight of Tamil minorities dominated
the agenda for the Lok Sabha polls, Times of India says in an online
report dated Mar. 30. Even AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa, avowedly
anti-LTTE in her stand, made a distinction and focused on the
governments inability to protect Tamil refugees. But then in
politics, 18 months is a long time. The loudest pro-Tiger voice
of Tamil Nadu, Vaiko is off the electoral platform. And the AIADMK,
routed in three successive polls, appears to have realized that in
peace-loving Tamil Nadu, the Lanka factor cannot win polls. But
why have pro-Tiger guns fallen silent? The pro-LTTE fringe groups
which fielded candidates against Congress leaders including home
minister P Chidambaram in the last parliamentary elections and backed
the AIADMK appear to have quietly retired to their political caverns.
Barring actor-director Seeman, who is aggressively campaigning against
Congress in 63 constituencies, most prominent LTTE supporters have
chosen to watch the show from the sidelines. In an election
fought over inflation, freebies and scams, the Eelam Tamil issue is
clearly not seen as a vote-grabber, although the poll manifestos of
both DMK and AIADMK still pledge "continued" support for Sri
Lankan Tamils. Says actor Seeman, who is campaigning against Congress
in Rameswaram, "In an election which is held to determine the
destiny of Tamils, it is a tragic irony that none of the political
parties are talking about the sufferings of Eelam Tamils." In the
last parliamentary elections, the AIADMK and DMK raised the Eelam
issue for the sake of votes, "but they had no genuine love for
Tamils", he charges. A Chennai-based lawyer Rajiv Gandhi
who polled over 4,000 votes in Sivaganga constituency where
Chidambaram scraped through by a wafer-thin margin, is not contesting
this time. He is just campaigning against the Congress along with
Seeman. But he too rues that leading political parties have
"forgotten the Eelam issue (Island
; 30 March 2011).

Douglas lashes out at
TNA during meet with Norwegian Ambassador -
Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development Minister
Douglas Devananda on Tuesday (29) briefed Norwegian Ambassador Ms
Hilde Haraldstad on the current efforts to improve the livelihood of
the war displaced. Minister Devananda said that contrary to
accusations by the TNA, targeting the government and his party, the
EPDP, the government had done a tremendous amount of work since the
conclusion of war. The EPDP leader urged the Norwegian Ambassador to
provide assistance for the ongoing State-run projects in the Northern
and Eastern Provinces. The Jaffna District MP said those enjoying the
new post-war freedom had ignored the TNA campaign (Island
; 30 March 2011).

US misusing UN
mandate - Senior Minister - The United
States is misusing the UN mandate to hide the real intentions behind
the Libyan attack, said Scientific Affairs Senior Minister Prof Tissa
Vitarana addressing a Lanka Sama Samaja Party press conference held
yesterday. He said that this incident should be a warning to Sri
Lanka not to fall for the "accountability" trap that the UN
is striving to spring on the Government for alleged human rights
violations during the final stage of the war against the LTTE.
He observed that the US intention is to ensure continued access to
Libyan- oil at more favourable terms through a US puppet regime which
could be the ultimate result of the people's uprising in Libya. He
noted that the Libyan situation has enabled the US to intervene on the
basis of the "right to protect". The Senior Minister
also pointed out that the US is ignoring the harsh crackdown on the
people's uprisings by the regimes in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and
Bahrain. "The Yemeni-regime is assisting in the fight
against Al-Qaeda and US bases are located in Bahrain. "The
US also fears that a Shiite regime in Bahrain would be friendly to
Shiite Iran. "It is clear that they are preparing the
ground for intervention in Iran, by getting the UN Human Rights
Council to appoint a special investigator to look into alleged human
rights abuses in Iran," he noted (Daily
News : 30 March 2011).

Melbourne
hit by ID crime with LTTE links

Melbourne hit by ID
crime with LTTE links - Organized gangs with
links to Britain and Sri Lanka are fuelling a fresh wave of identity
fraud in Victoria, with Melbourne's inner city firming as the latest
frontier in card skimming, as police accuse banks of putting their own
reputations before their customers' welfare, Herald Sun reported. The
news report said: A secret national task force has broken a
$100 million global Eftpos skimming syndicate with 56 arrests,
including two individuals from Britain and two from Canada. At least
seven ATMs and two Eftpos machines have been skimmed in Melbourne in
recent months, with crime gangs increasingly hitting the inner
city. Global crime syndicates committing large-scale identity
fraud around Australia may have links with Sri Lankan terrorists.
Victoria Police Detective Senior Sergeant Peter Endler said skimming
gangs typically hit Melbourne's outer suburbs before flying home, but
an active Victoria Police investigation involves an unknown group
hitting machines in the city. Last year, the Victoria Police fraud and
extortion squad brought down a British-linked Eftpos skimming
syndicate preying on Melbourne's Sri Lankan community. Police charged
six people - five of them Sri Lankan - with conspiracy to defraud and
associated crimes, court records show. The operation was
linked to the nationwide Taskforce Chamonix. The ringleader, a Sri
Lankan who flew to Melbourne via Sydney from his home in Britain,
would offer Sri Lankan students working at Melbourne service stations
up to $30,000 for access to their stores' Eftpos handsets. The
syndicate would install skimming technology in the machines and spy
cameras overhead to capture each customer's PIN. Now serving
at least four years' jail, the ringleader was also made to pay Westpac,
ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank $70,000 in compensation. Sri
Lanka warned Australia about card skimming at least four years ago.
Concerns intensified that stolen funds could be supporting Tamil Tiger
terrorists after the arrest of several Tamils over Eftpos fraud in
Western Australia. Police have not said Australian money had
ended up with Tamil terrorists, but similar skimming schemes in Canada
and Britain have channelled funds to the group. Australian Crime
Commission figures show 63,000 fake debit card transactions worth
$24.5 million were recorded in Australia in 2009, up 50 per cent in
three years. Queensland Det-Supt Brian Hay accused banks of failing to
properly report credit card fraud to authorities for fear of damaging
their brands (Daily
Mirror : 29 March 2011).

LLRC ends public
sittings - Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation
Commission (LLRC) has concluded its public sittings with its visit to
Ampara last week, LLRC media spokesman Lakshman Wickramasinghe said
yesterday. Other than the sittings in Colombo, the LLRC held
public sittings in the districts of Jaffna, Batticaloa, Mannar,
Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Matara, Ampara, Moneragala, Galle, Matara,
Puttalam and Anuradhapura. The LLRC also visited the Boosa
detention camp to interview LTTE detainees. It is expected to handover
its final report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa by May 15. Meanwhile,
in another turn around, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) General
Secretary Hasan Ali told Tamil Mirror online yesterday that party
leader and Minister Rauff Hakeem would not testify before the LLRC but
would make a written submission after Mr. Hakeem returned to the
country. Earlier the SLMC said Mr. Hakeem would testify at the Ampara
sittings (Daily
Mirror : 29 March 2011).

Skimming fraud
funding terrorists - RGANISED crime gangs
with links to Britain and Sri Lanka are fuelling a fresh wave of
identity fraud in Victoria, with Melbourne's inner city firming as the
latest frontier in card skimming. As police accuse banks of putting
their own reputations before their customers' welfare, Herald Sun
Investigations found: A SECRET national taskforce has broken a $100
million global Eftpos skimming syndicate with 56 arrests, including
two individuals from Britain and two from Canada. AT LEAST seven ATMs
and two Eftpos machines have been skimmed in Melbourne in recent
months, with crime gangs increasingly hitting the inner city. GLOBAL
crime syndicates committing large-scale identity fraud around
Australia may have links with Sri Lankan terrorists. Victoria Police
Detective Senior Sergeant Peter Endler said skimming gangs typically
hit Melbourne's outer suburbs before flying home, but an active
Victoria Police investigation involves an unknown group hitting
machines in the city. Last year, the Victoria Police fraud and
extortion squad brought down a British-linked Eftpos skimming
syndicate preying on Melbourne's Sri Lankan community. Police charged
six people - five of them Sri Lankan - under Operation Around with
conspiracy to defraud and associated crimes, court records show. The
operation was linked to the nationwide Taskforce Chamonix. The
ringleader, a Sri Lankan who flew to Melbourne via Sydney from his
home in Britain, would offer Sri Lankan students working at Melbourne
service stations up to $30,000 for access to their stores' Eftpos
handsets. The syndicate would install skimming technology in the
machines and spy cameras overhead to capture each customer's PIN. Now
serving at least four years' jail, the ringleader was also made to pay
Westpac, ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank $70,000 in compensation. Sri
Lanka warned Australia about card skimming at least four years ago.
Concerns intensified that stolen funds could be supporting Tamil
Tigers terrorists after the arrest of several Tamils over Eftpos fraud
in Western Australia. Police have not said Australian money has ended
up with Tamil terrorists, but similar skimming schemes in Canada and
Britain have given funds to the group. Australian Crime Commission
figures show 63,000 fake debit card transactions worth $24.5 million
were recorded in Australia in 2009, up 50 per cent in three years.
Queensland Det-Supt Brian Hay accused banks of failing to properly
report credit card fraud to authorities for fear of damaging their
brands (Herald
Sun : 28 March 2011).

UN Panel could meet
LLRC - MR - President Mahinda Rajapaksa at a
meeting with the Colomob-based foreign correspondents yesterday at
Temple Trees reiterated his position that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moons
three-member advisory panel could visit Sri Lanka to meet the Lessons
Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). The President
stressed that the UN panel would not be allowed to conduct any
investigations here. Meanwhile The Hindustan Times
reported: The ambitious Indian project to build 50,000 houses
for the displaced Tamil civilians in the North seems to have been
delayed. Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Monday that
the pilot project of 1,000 houses is likely to take off in July. The
foundation stone for the pilot project was laid last November by
External Affairs Minister, SM Krishna, amid much fanfare. And, the
project was announced in June 2010. Land for the pilot project
would be allocated in five northern Lanka districts including
Kilinochchi, Rajapaksa said. "We have given land," he said
at an interaction with Colombo-based foreign correspondents on Monday.
Diplomatic sources in Colombo, however, said the construction of the
first 1,000 houses should begin much before July (Island
; 28 March 2011).

Human smuggling
network still at large  National Post -
Despite an international crackdown, the organizers of the human
smuggling network are still on the loose. And they are still
recruiting passengers willing to pay handsomely to be shipped to
Canada, the National Post reported. Lieutenant-General Pongpat
Chayapan of the Royal Thai Police said in an interview with the
National Post, "I am aware that there is a network, a smuggling
ring that is preparing to smuggle people over to Canada."
When the MV Ocean Lady arrived off the British Columbia coast in 2009
carrying 76 migrants, it signaled that Canada had become a target of
Southeast Asias human smuggling syndicates, the National Post
said. The next ship, the MV Sun Sea, came last August, this time
with 492 migrants on board, some of them former Sri Lankan
rebels. And its not over yet. The RCMP believes the
smugglers are working from Thailand, Malaysia and Laos to send yet
another migrant ship to the West Coast. The smuggling runs are
dangerous, as the images of a migrant ship breaking up off Australias
Christmas Island last December attest. Twenty-eight died that morning.
They are also costly. The Canadian government has spent $25-million to
date dealing with the MV Sun Sea (Island
: 28 March 2011).

Rajapaksa set to meet
UN panel - ...... Sri Lanka had strongly
opposed the Ban Ki-moons move to appoint the panel last year.
Rajapaksa had instead appointed the LLRC to look into the failure of
the Norway-brokered ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers leading to the
last years of the war. But global rights groups have since dismissed
the internal panel as a facile attempt by the government to deflect
growing criticism of its human rights record during the wars final
stage. Both the government and the LTTE have been accused of
being behind civilian casualties as the war came to an end in
2009. ``No one can harm the citizens of their country anybody
killing people is not with them, Rajapaksa said when asked about
the situation in Libya. Rajapaksa was probably among the few close
allies embattled Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had called after the
civil broke out. Rajapaksa said: We are not with anyone
killing civilians and cannot accept the violation of the sovereignty
of any country. (Hindustan
Times : 28 March 2011).

Sun Sea migrant
performed in LTTE movie - One of the Tamil
migrants from the MV Sun Sea performed in an elaborate video
production promoting the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the
Immigration and Refugee Board has been told. The dramatization
-available on YouTube and apparently shown to some of the cargo ship's
passengers before it set sail for Canada last year -depicts members of
the Tigers' elite suicide squad going on a mission to rescue hundreds
of other LTTE fighters from the Sri Lankan army. "This is not a
regular movie made for pure entertainment . . . or an artistic
endeavour by a filmmaker," said Becky Chan, a representative of
the Canada Border Services Agency, which is seeking the man's
deportation. Chan said that while the man may not have been a
formal member of the Tigers, his role in the film and other activities
-including providing martial arts instruction for LTTE -helped advance
the cause of the Tigers. One does not have to have received specific
training or engaged in combat to be considered a member of a terrorist
organization, Chan told the board Friday. The migrant's lawyer,
Shepherd Moss, insisted his client's activities did not amount to
membership in the organization. He said that because his client was
living in territory controlled by LTTE, it was virtually impossible
for him to avoid interaction with the Tigers. His client's activities
and motivations were strictly "civilian," Moss said.
Under questioning by Moss, the man testified he agreed to participate
in the movie because he wanted to make himself a "popular person.
I didn't have any other desire," he said. He also testified that
he taught karate to help steer young people away from smoking and
drinking and to help them "develop character." Friday's
admissibility hearing is the fourth to be held since the arrival of
492 Tamil migrants on the Sun Sea last August. The Canada Border
Services Agency has so far requested admissibility hearings for about
40 of the migrants, mostly on the grounds that they were members of
LTTE or committed serious crimes, including war crimes, while abroad.
Of the three who have had their admissibility hearings, two were
ordered deported, though there are still appeals in progress. The
migrant at the centre of Friday's hearing cannot be identified due to
a publication ban (The
Province : 28 March 2011).

West
should decide who represents Tamils

Beware of LTTE false
pretences Ambassador tells European states: Important
reasons - Modus operandi used by LTTE - Remnant cadres skills -
Europe, a preferred location Sri Lankas Ambassador to Belgium,
Luxembourg and the EU Ravinatha Aryasinha cautioned against those advo-
ating mono-ethnic separatism in Sri Lanka while espousing the ideology
of the LTTE, using its money and being manipulated by its surviving
military leaders. It is important that European States and
institutions do not provide any political or symbolic support, nor
should they be fooled by the false pretences of those continuing to
advocate mono-ethnic separatism in Sri Lanka through peaceful
means, while espousing the ideology of the LTTE, using its money
and being manipulated by its surviving military leaders, he
said. Ambassador Aryasinha made these observations when he
addressed a group of senior members of the judicial, police,
intelligence, military and corporate security community in Brussels,
on the theme Thwarting the LTTEs designs in Europe at a
meeting of the European Corporate Security Association (ECSA) held on
March 23, 2011. The Ambassador told his audience that despite
the LTTE being militarily defeated in Sri Lanka, they should continue
to worry about the LTTE for three important sets of reasons.
First, because understanding the modus operandi used by the LTTE at
its peak, as well as those the remnant LTTE terrorist/front
organization/criminal elements continue to adopt, will help understand
the strategies and tactics of similar groups, who might more
specifically be the focus of their attention. Second, because
the remnant cadres of the LTTE and its front organizations constitute
a ready army of mercenaries for hire who posses a wide spectrum of
skills that can be obtained for a price and in this day and age of
self inspired terrorism, there are many including the numerous single
issue terrorist groups looking for such skills. These skills included
arms procurement and smuggling, passport fraud and human trafficking,
skimming, extortion and money laundering, threat to corporate
interests, propaganda broadcasts and cyber terror, as well as the
radicalization and indoctrination of youth. Third, since the
military defeat of the LTTE in Sri Lanka in May 2009, Europe has
become the preferred location for concentration of assets, personnel
and activity of the LTTE (Daily
News ; 28 March 2011).

West should decide
who represents Tamils - Sri Lanka said
that Western governments should come to a conclusion as to who speak
for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, whether those in the diaspora, who
continue to seek an independent Tamil Eelam or peace loving Tamils in
Sri Lanka and abroad. Western governments too will soon have to
come to a conclusion as to who speaks for the Tamils of Sri Lanka?
Whether it is those in the diaspora who are unrepentant, militant and
continue to seek an independent Tamil Eelam, or whether it
should be those peace loving Tamils living both in Sri Lanka, as well
as abroad, who are ready to move forward with other communities in Sri
Lanka in solidarity, Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg
and the EU Ravinatha Aryasinha has said. Ambassador Aryasinha
made these observations when he addressed a group of senior members of
the judicial, police, intelligence, military and corporate security
community in Brussels, on the theme Thwarting the LTTEs designs
in Europe at a meeting of the European Corporate Security
Association (ECSA). He also said that since the military
defeat of the LTTE in Sri Lanka in May 2009, Europe has become the
preferred location for concentration of assets, personnel and activity
of the LTTE. He said, besides the radicalized activism of
LTTE front organizations in several European capitals, and the arrest
of 32 LTTE activists in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and
Switzerland and conviction of a further 21 in France over the past 15
months, the 'in-charge' of the LTTEs assets and network of front
organizations Nadiyavan, the LTTE's senior most surviving intelligence
leader Vinayakam, Propagandist-in-Chief Jeyachandran and Global Tamil
Forum chief Fr. Emmanuel were all located in Europe, to which also the
centre of gravity of the so-called Transnational Government of
Tamil Eelam has shifted following the formation of the breakaway TGTE
(Democrats) group recently. Ambassador Aryasinha also noted that
Sri Lankas quest for reconciliation and development will no
doubt be helped, to the extent that foreign governments maintain a
watchful eye, concerning the activities of pro-LTTE elements, said
It is important that European States and institutions do not
provide any political or symbolic support, nor should they be fooled
by the false pretences of those continuing to advocate mono-ethnic
separatism in Sri Lanka through peaceful means, while espousing
the ideology of the LTTE, using its money and being manipulated by its
surviving military leaders (Daily
Mirror ; 28 March 2011).

International
Thuggery - By S L Gunasekara - A destroyed
Libyan tank and munitions are seen in the city of Ajdabiya, south of
Benghazi, eastern Libya, Saturday, March 26, 2011. Libyan rebels
regained control of the eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya on Saturday
after international airstrikes crippled Moammar Gadhafis forces, in
the first major turnaround for an uprising that a week ago appeared on
the verge of defeat. (AP). Can anyone listen to the sanctimonious
speeches of Obama and his lap-dogs such as Cameron and Sarkozy about
their allegedly "noble" (!!) motives for their campaign of
aggression in Libya, where they rain destruction on that country from
a safe distance  i.e. from state of the art aircraft and missiles
launched from aircraft carriers and from highly sophisticated war
ships anchored away from the coast of Libya without being nauseated?
I, for one, cannot. If there breathes a man so gullible and so stupid
as to believe what Obama and his lap-dogs say, they would also have to
believe the unbelievable - that this coalition of international thugs
led by Obama and his lap-dogs practise unceasing aggression on Libya
not because they hate Gaddafi, (who is one leader of a third world
country who never licked the boots of the Americans or the paws of any
of her lap-dogs) and want his oil reserves, but only because of their
deep desire for the welfare of civilians and the establishment of
democracy in that country!!! It is pertinent at this stage to compare
the conduct of these thugs vis-à-vis Libya to their conduct under the
then leaders of their countries such as George W Bush etc vis-à-vis
Iraq. It is indisputable that all of them detested the Head of State
of that country Saddam Hussein, who was another leader of a third
world country, who would not lick the boots of the Americans or the
paws of any of its lap-dogs such as the once Great Britain (Island
; 27 March 2011).

SL draws EUs
attention to LTTE rumps operations
- Sri Lankas Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU
Ravinatha Aryasinha, says since the military defeat of the LTTE in Sri
Lanka in May 2009, Europe has become the preferred location for
concentration of assets, personnel and activity of the LTTE. In
his address to the European Corporate Security Association (ECSA) on
March 23, Ambassador Aryasinha said that besides the radicalised
activism of LTTE front organisations in several European capitals and
the arrest of 32 LTTE activists in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway
and Switzerland and conviction of a further 21 in France over the past
15 months, the person in charge of the LTTEs assets and network of
front organisations Nadiyavan, the LTTEs senior most surviving
intelligence leader Vinayakam, Propagandist-in-Chief Jeyachandran and
Global Tamil Forum chief Fr. Emmanuel were all located in Europe, to
which also the centre of gravity of the so-called "Transnational
Government of Tamil Eelam has shifted following the formation of the
breakaway TGTE (Democrats) group recently. Noting that Sri
Lankas quest for reconciliation and development would no doubt be
helped to the extent that foreign governments maintain a watchful eye
concerning the activities of pro-LTTE elements, he said: "It
is important that European States and institutions do not provide any
political or symbolic support, nor should they be fooled by the false
pretences of those continuing to advocate mono-ethnic separatism in
Sri Lanka "through peaceful means", while espousing the
ideology of the LTTE, using its money and being manipulated by its
surviving military leaders" (Island
: 27 March 2011).

West should decide -
SL - Sri Lanka said that Western governments
should come to a conclusion as to who speak for the Tamils of Sri
Lanka, whether those in the diaspora, who continue to seek an
independent Tamil Eelam or peace loving Tamils in Sri Lanka and
abroad. Western governments too will soon have to come to a
conclusion as to who speaks for the Tamils of Sri Lanka? Whether it is
those in the diaspora who are unrepentant, militant and continue to
seek an independent Tamil Eelam, or whether it should be those
peace loving Tamils living both in Sri Lanka, as well as abroad, who
are ready to move forward with other communities in Sri Lanka in
solidarity, Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the
EU Ravinatha Aryasinha has said. Ambassador Aryasinha made these
observations when he addressed a group of senior members of the
judicial, police, intelligence, military and corporate security
community in Brussels, on the theme Thwarting the LTTEs designs
in Europe at a meeting of the European Corporate Security
ssociation (ECSA). He also said that since the military defeat of
the LTTE in Sri Lanka in May 2009, Europe has become the preferred
location for concentration of assets, personnel and activity of the
LTTE. He said, besides the radicalized activism of LTTE front
organizations in several European capitals, and the arrest of 32 LTTE
activists in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland and
conviction of a further 21 in France over the past 15 months, the
'in-charge' of the LTTEs assets and network of front organizations
Nadiyavan, the LTTE's senior most surviving intelligence leader
Vinayakam, Propagandist-in-Chief Jeyachandran and Global Tamil Forum
chief Fr. Emmanuel were all located in Europe, to which also the
centre of gravity of the so-called Transnational Government of
Tamil Eelam has shifted following the formation of the breakaway TGTE
(Democrats) group recently. Ambassador Aryasinha also noted that Sri
Lankas quest for reconciliation and development will no doubt be
helped, to the extent that foreign governments maintain a watchful
eye, concerning the activities of pro-LTTE elements, said It is
important that European States and institutions do not provide any
political or symbolic support, nor should they be fooled by the false
pretences of those continuing to advocate mono-ethnic separatism in
Sri Lanka through peaceful means, while espousing the ideology
of the LTTE, using its money and being manipulated by its surviving
military leaders (Daily
Mirror ; 27 March 2011).

2011
Cricket World Cup

Congratulations
Dilshan and Upul Tharanga

TNA seeks police and
land powers for North; Devolution issues to be taken up with
President - The Tamil National Alliance
wants the Government to grant the Northern Province police powers
besides the right to manage land and forest reservations. This request
will be placed before President Mahinda Rajapaksa through a government
committee in the course of periodic consultations. The TNA points out
that these subjects are already listed in the Concurrent List of the
13th Amendment to the Constitution. These are the major subjects of
power sharing the TNA wants to discuss with the Government. TNA MP
Mavai Senathiraja told the Sunday Times this would be the first time
issues relating to power sharing would be discussed by the TNA with
UPFA leaders. In the previous meeting with the President, the TNA
delegation had discussed welfare measures for people affected by the
war in the north. TNA leader R. Sampanthan who has been overseas for
medical treatment for nearly three months is expected back on April 4
and a TNA decision on power sharing proposal would be finalized after
that. President Rajapaksa told newspaper editors on Friday that even
though talks with the TNA had proceeded well, the party was still to
come up with proposals on power sharing. We will look into the TNA
proposals and have discussions with other parties before taking a
decision. They will ask for more, but we will have to strike a
balance, he said. Whatever proposals they make, I will not give
what the LTTE has been asking for, he said (Sunday
Times : 27 March 2011).

Army denies pro-LTTE
report - The Army yesterday denied an online
pro-LTTE propaganda report of a terrorist attack on a military
convoy last Thursday as killing five personnel while injuring a
senior officer. According to a pro-terrorist online portal, a
military convoy had come under a possible LTTE terrorist attack
deep inside the Habarana jungle enclave. A spokesman for the Army said
the story was a complete fabrication and no such incident had taken
place. Defence observers said this was another fabrication of
LTTE propagandists irked by the magnitude of development and economic
progress in the North and the East (Sunday
Observer : 27 March 2011).

Solheim Meets
Diaspora - Norwegian Minister of
International Development and former special peace envoy Erik Solheim
has met representatives of the Tamil diaspora in Oslo, Norway News
reported. The meeting was held just over a week ago and was organised
at the request of some Tamil groups in order to be briefed about
Norways policy on Sri Lanka and also to present their views on the
current situation in the country. Minister Solheims main focus
during the meeting was to listen to the input from the Tamil groups.
His advice to them was that the only way to promote development and a
political solution in Sri Lanka is to engage in dialogue with the
Government of Sri Lanka, Norway News reported. Solheim, in an
interview with News Now.lk a few months ago, had said Norway would
like to play the role of a dialogue partner between the Sri
Lankan government and communities living in exile. However Norway News
said that well known LTTE Norway activist Nediyavan has rejected the
idea (Sunday
Leader : 27 March 2011).

Parliament discusses
UN panel on Sri Lanka - South Africa's Vice
President, Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe has told the country's National
Assembly that a Sri Lanka delegation met the three-member United
Nations Panel probing alleged war crimes issues in Sri Lanka.
The meeting between the two sides in New York was exclusively reported
in the Sunday Times of March 6. Both the UN and the Sri Lankan side
have kept this meeting a secret. A question was raised by S.J.
Nijekalana of the African National Congress in the South African
National Assembly, their Parliament. It was directed at the Deputy
President, Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe. Here is his response: Kgalema
Petrus Motlanthe "As far as we know there are no such
investigations taking place, and thus our government has therefore not
been requested to contribute. "What we do know as the government
of South Africa is that the United Nations Secretary-General appointed
on 22 June 2010 a three-member United Nations Panel of Experts to
advise him on accountability issues relating to alleged violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law during the final
stages of the Sri Lankan conflict. "The panel consists of Mr
Marzuki Darusman (Indonesian and Chairperson), Ms Yasmin Sooka (South
African) and Mr Steven Ratner (United States) and officially commenced
its work on 16 September 2010. The deadline date for submissions in
this regard was set as 31 December 2010 (Sunday
Times ; 27 March 2011).

Jaffna comes alive
with music from across the globe - Jaffna
Municipal Grounds, in the close vicinity of famous Jaffna Library and
Alfred Duraiappah Stadium, came alive last two days, as hundreds of
artistes from across the country took part in the Jaffna Music
Festival 2011. More than 24 local folk art and music groups
representing many areas in the country and five international folk
groups from India, Nepal, Palestine, South Africa and Norway rendered
performances to the applaud of the crowds gathered at the stadium.
Funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Colombo in partnership with
USAID, the festival was organised by the Sewa Lanka Foundation with
the support of Concerts Norway and Aru Sri Art Theatre. We plan to
make this a biannual event. And next we want to have a similar
festival in Galle, organizers told The Nation. The groups were
selected following a long process that ran over three months, after
processing 60-80 applications. The main event in Jaffna was followed
by a series of village performances. Most of these groups have been
confined to their villages for many years and have not performed
outside. For them, performing under lights and with modern sound
equipment was a novel idea, the organisers said. University of
Jaffna has played a significant role in identifying unique folk art
groups in Jaffna and a university representative said until recently
they were not able to have night performances due to the conflict. For
the first time after a long time they were able to have a festival
running into late night (The
Nation : 27 March 2011).

Sri Lanka: ICRC to
operate exclusively from Colombo - In
November 2010, the Sri Lankan government asked the ICRC to close its
offices in Jaffna and Vavuniya and to conduct its operations
exclusively from Colombo. The ICRC head of delegation in Sri Lanka and
two Sri Lankan staff members from the Jaffna and Vavuniya offices
reflect on ICRC operations in Sri Lanka, past and future (Island
: 26 March 2011).

Tamil migrant
appeared in Tigers propaganda video, hearing told
- One of the Tamil migrants from the MV Sun Sea performed in an
elaborate video production promoting the banned Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam, the Immigration and Refugee Board was told Friday.
The dramatization -- available on YouTube and apparently shown to some
of the cargo ship's passengers before it set sail for Canada last year
-- depicts members of the Tigers' elite suicide squad going on a
mission to rescue hundreds of other LTTE fighters from the Sri Lankan
army. "This is not a regular movie made for pure
entertainment ... or an artistic endeavour by a filmmaker," said
Becky Chan, a representative of the Canada Border Services Agency,
which is seeking the man's deportation. Chan said while the man
may not have been a formal member of the Tigers, his role in the film
and other activities -- including providing martial arts instruction
for the LTTE -- helped advance the cause of the Tigers. One does
not have to have received specific training or engaged in combat to be
considered a member of a terrorist organization, Chan told the
board. The migrant's lawyer, Shepherd Moss, insisted his
client's activities did not amount to membership in the organization.
He said that because his client was living in territory controlled by
the LTTE, it was virtually impossible for him to avoid interaction
with the Tigers. Friday's admissibility hearing is the fourth to
be held since the arrival of 492 Tamil migrants on the Sun Sea last
August. The Canada Border Services Agency has so far requested
admissibility hearings for about 40 of the migrants, mostly on the
grounds that they were members of the LTTE or committed serious
crimes, including war crimes, while abroad. Of the three who
have had their admissibility hearings, two were ordered deported,
though there are still appeals in progress (Vancouver
Sun ; 26 March 2011).

'Curse of Extremism'
- Officials bust LTTE propaganda effort -
Sri Lanka military vehemently denied an online propaganda report of a
'terrorist attack on a military convoy' last Thursday (24) as killing
5 personnel while injuring a senior officer. According to a
pro-terrorist online portal, a military convoy had come under a
possible 'LTTE terrorist attack' deep inside the Habarana jungle
enclave. Defence observers making note on the latest LTTE
propaganda theme, are of the view that such efforts by anti-peace cum
terrorist mouth pieces as violent reactions- irked by the magnitude of
development and economic progress in the once war torn North and
East. Democracy is flourishing in the nation as Sri Lanka is
well ahead of becoming the Miracle of Asia- a vow President Rajapaksa
made resuming office for the second term. The recently concluded
Local Government Elections resulted in a landslide win to the ruling
UPFA government while Tamil political parties secured 12 of the
contested 235, ahead of the major opposition party-UNP with a mere 8
councils under its belt. Also, Sri Lanka been an official host
of the ICC World-Cup and the unprecedented exhibition of talent by the
local boys has indeed pricked eyes of the doomsayers. Similar,
anti-Sri Lankan propaganda efforts by LTTE activists aboard were
intense at the 2007 Caribbean World-Cup, which ended in drama as the
Sri Lanka cricket team went ahead making to a rain rattled finale.
Furthermore, the latest revelation declaring Hambantota-candidate city
for the 2018 Commonwealth Games has added more slat on wounds of those
with sinister anti-.Sri Lanka motives. Since, end of the three
decade terrorist scourge in 2009 the islanders are reaping benefits of
peace with mega development projects underway on all parts of the
nation involving billions of dollars of foreign investments. Sri Lanka
is experiencing a large tourist influx with many hotels full and
booked for months. Hence, similar propaganda gimmicks are
expected to surf intended at creating a hype of doubt, defence
analysts said adding that the perpetrators driven by the 'curse of
extremism' will be only be left -defied by their own hatred (Sri
Lanka Defence Ministry : 26 March 2011).

With guns silent,
Jaffna drums up music festival - The much
anticipated Jaffna Music Festival 2011 started its three day saga
yesterday celebrating the almost forgotten beats and rhythms of the
peninsula and the neighbouring cities. A sister event of the biennial
Galle Music Fest, the 2011 festival champions the multi ethnic and
multi cultural identities of Sri Lanka through sound, dance, music and
folk art. The event would help re-establish the nearly dying art forms
of the nearly destroyed parts of the country while giving the
Jaffna village folks a taste of additional forms of music via
performances from other provinces of Sri Lanka as well as from other
countries of the globe. The event is held adjacent to the Duraiappa
Stadium in Jaffna. Decorated in style with a massive structure,
typically Tamil with the various poses and forms of the deities they
believe in, the festival ground is hard to miss. A large open space
has been transformed into a cultural camp like atmosphere with every
nook and corner is filled with little edifying treasures. The people,
decorated by their signature smiles and the red and white pottus
they adorn so religiously on their foreheads guide throngs of
villages, foreigners and media personnel in haltering English and
Sinhala. But before that they ensure that the passersby are also
blessed by placing a pottu, almost a visual sign of bridging gaps
between cultural and ethical differences. While the dust swirls almost
alluringly if not for the constant sneezes you would hear, the air is
filled with soft notes of music followed by almost frantic beating of
the drums and sounding of flutes. While the impossibly hot air and
scorching sun burns those walking around, the music and art makes up
for it with its soothing presence. The event is one of the biggest
ever held within the city and the fact is evident by the extravagant
saaris and vettis that adorn the body of the men and women. Their
excitement is evident and what is also noted is that like the ancient
records say, the Jaffna people love their music. Heads sway, feat tap
the burning sand and smiles play their tune. A large number of folk
groups are scheduled to perform during the three day period. From the
upcountry dancing and traditional singing from Warakapola, kohomba
kankariya and bali natum from Kandy, kolam dance from Mirissa, the
famous puppet shows from Ambalangoda, Daha ata Sanniya from Denipitya
and the Sabaragamuwa folk dance groups have come down from other parts
of Sri Lanka to be a part of the very first Jaffna Music Festival 2011
(Daily
FT : 26 March 2011).

TNA
should consider themselves as Sri Lankans and not resort to devious
measures aimed at segregation

Another
Bombshell by Human Rights Watch (HRW) - By
Malin Abeyatunga, Melbourne, Australia - This is how Alan Dershowitz-Professor
of Law at Harvard Law School sees Human Rights Watch (source-Lankaweb-HRW)
Quote Who will guard the guardians? asked Roman satirist
Juvenal. Now we must ask, who is watching Human Rights Watch, one of
the worlds best-financed and most influential human rights
organizations? It turns out that they cook the books about facts,
cheat on interviews, and put out pre-determined conclusions that are
driven more by their ideology than by evidence. These are serious
accusations, and they are demonstrably true. Alan Dershowitz Felix
Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School This is a plain
truth when we consider the various reports published by HRW on Sri
Lanka/LTTE terrorist conflict. How appropriate and true of this
analysis of HRW! HRW which was founded in 1978 (as per Wkipedia)would
have had good intentions when it was started but those good intentions
appear to have swallowed by dollar vultures. Sri Lanka has been an
easy target for the HRW for the last two decades or so in our fight
against the LTTE terrorist out fit which FBI described as the most
brutal terrorist organization in the world. The extent the HRW has
been ignoring LTTEs horrendous atrocities and the way they
mollycoddled LTTE and its supportive Tamil Diaspora, people began to
wander whether it is Human Rights Watch or Eelam Rights Watch .
HRW with their dollars lavishly throwing about has managed to
influence the print and electronic media specially in the western
block of countries against small countries like Sri Lanka. They never
dared to raise its fingers against the USA,UK and NATO countries
albeit hundreds of thousands innocent civilians have been killed in
IRAQ and Afghanistan. In HRWs report in March 2008, a simple
example given below shows how smart HRW in cooking up and fabricating
stories and creating fictions to suit its agenda. Vairamuththu
Varatharasan, a 40-year-old truck driver and father of five, was
abducted from his home in Colombo on January 7, 2007, and has not been
seen since. His wife told Human Rights Watch: A group of about 20
men  some in police uniforms, some in civilian clothes surrounded
the house. One policeman came inside and asked for our identity card.
I went into one of the rooms to get the identity card. By the time I
came out of the room, my husband was not there; neither was the
policeman. I ran out and spotted a van parked in a dark place on the
road. I ran to the road, but by the time I got there, the van started
and left. Firstly, She had time to count the number in the group as
twenty in a panic situation. Then she says by the time she came out
of the room her husband was not there neither was the policeman.
(EMPHASIS-ONE POLICEMAN) . Now what happened to other 19 people of the
group who came to abduct him? Doesnt this look a cooked up story?
All other testimonials quoted in this report also do not have any
credibility. Now the question arises as to who interview these Tamils?
When and Where? To whom these 99 cases reported? Did HRW gone through
the veracity of the reports? Or is it hearsay? Or cant that be a
LTTE propagandist who made up these cases to get sympathy from the
International Community just the way HRW is sympathizing with LTTE? (Sri
Lanka News Online : 26 March 2011).

Govt to monitor NGOs
- Suitable policy to be worked out - To
ensure that people benefit - It is the right and responsibility of the
government to monitor how Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) obtain
funds and how they are spent, stated President Mahinda Rajapaksa
during a meeting with the Editors of the print and electronic media at
Temple Trees yesterday. He said that many millions of rupees
come into the country on a monthly and yearly basis and currently
there is no mechanism to monitor from where they come from and how
these funds are utilized. The President, citing India as an example,
added that almost no other country in the world allows organizations
to bring large amounts of money into the country and spend them on
projects of their own without any monitoring by the government. Therefore,
the Government intends to workout a suitable policy to monitor their
activities, President Rajapaksa said. He pointed out that specific
guidelines are needed for NGOs to obtain funds through the correct
methods and spend in a correct manner. He emphasized that this is not
an anti-NGO policy but a valid mechanism to ensure that the people
benefit through such funds. Joining the discussion, Mass Media and
Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said that such unmonitored
fund inflows could even lead to money laundering, which is now a
growing global concern (Daily
News : 26 March 2011).

Post-conflict
reconciliation: Talks with Tamil parties -
President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated that initial talks have taken place
with Tamil political parties on aspects of post-conflict
reconciliation in Sri Lanka although no formal proposals have been
made so far by them. The President was addressing Editors of the print
and electronic media at Temple Trees yesterday. The President said
that after considering proposals from all parties a mutual agreement
will be made. He added that the focus is on alleged or perceived
grievances of minority communities. However, little is said or
reported in the media about the amity that exists among them, he
pointed out. He said that earlier a very high percentage of Sinhalese
lived in Colombo, but today it is less than 30 percent. But, this
has not led to misunderstandings and there are no complaints of
discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, he stressed. With regard
to measures taken outside of Colombo, the government has ensured the
appointment of at least one Tamil speaking police officer in each
police station in the North who can take down a complaint in Tamil, he
pointed out. In addition, in an increasing number of cases, the
first reports to courts in the Northern areas are now filed in Tamil,
he said. Such measures are taken to ensure that the government
responds to peoples needs, further promoting post-conflict
reconciliation. There is increasing appreciation from abroad of
the countrys post-conflict reconciliation process, stated the
President. External Affairs Minister Prof G L Peiris joining the
discussion agreed saying the European Union Parliamentary group that
visited Sri Lanka recently expressed their satisfaction of the
post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction. He added that Western
diplomats acknowledge there is no condition in Sri Lanka to seek
refuge for political purposes elsewhere but refuge is sought for
economic purposes. The President said that it is difficult for a
handful of Sri Lankan diplomatic staff abroad to counter various
charges raised against Sri Lanka by vast organizations, individuals
and other powerful entities. He said that there is a planned attack on
this country by such groups with the help of international media who
do not give publicity to the positive news in Sri Lanka (Daily
News : 26 March 2011).

Sri
Lanka Govt. has the right and the responsibility to monitor how NGOs
obtained funds and what they were used for

Rift in
Tiger government - The government is
to introduce a policy to monitor the activities of Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) in Sri Lanka, the Presidents office said
today. According to the Presidents office President Mahinda
Rajaapaksa has said that specific guideline are needed for NGOs to
obtain funds through the correct methods and spend in a correct
manner. It is the right and responsibility of the government to
monitor how NGOs obtain funds and how they are spent, President
Rajapaksa said. He said that many millions of rupees come into the
country on a monthly and yearly basis and currently there is no
mechanism to monitor from where they come from and how these funds are
utilized. The President, citing India as an example, added that almost
no other country in the world allows organizations to bring large
amounts of money into the country and spend them on projects of their
own without any monitoring by the government. Therefore, the
government intends to work out a suitable policy to monitor their
activities, President Rajapaksa said. He emphasized that this is
not an anti-NGO policy but a valid mechanism to ensure that the people
benefit through such funds (News
Now lk : 25 March 2011).

Polls Watchers 
Fund Catchers - "This calls for
very urgent action...we cant waste any time our moves must be
fast, firm and effective," that was the thinking of the
representative from the Centre for Profitable Alternatives (CPA).
"Just imagine all the funds that we stand to lose."
The organizer of the Centre for Manufacturing Elections Violence (CMEV)
that is an offshoot or subsidiary, call it what you like, of the CPA
had similar thoughts. "We must not forget that our entire
existence is based on the conduct of elections, free, fair or fowl. We
cant let the current situation prevail We must act fast .there
are other countries that will be asking for these funds very
soon." The member of the National Peace for Profit Council
(NPC) wanted to get some clarification about all the excitement. What
is the problem We must call for more action on reconciliation, that
will help us reconcile our figures and journals better What is the
problem you have that calls for urgent action?"
"Surely you must understand it is about the absence of any
elections in the coming months and possibly several years", said
the member from the CAFÉ crowd that is in the habit of making coffee
party pronouncements about widespread violence in polls campaigns (Island
: 25 March 2011).

Last female Tamil
refugee claimant freed - by Asoka
Weerasinghe, Canada - The Editor (Letters) THE OTTAWA CITIZEN; Sir:
Your news item Last female Tamil refugee claimant freed who
arrived on MV Sun Sea and held in detention since the ships arrival
in British Columbia coast last summer, was predictable as night would
follow day. There is a lesson learnt for the impending ship smuggled
Tamil refugees. Find the $45,000 for the voyage on a refugee smuggling
ship and get over to Canada, and if you can endure eight months of
detention with housing, meals and medical attention provided, you
would eventually get into Canada as a Vienna Convention refugee
claimant. It is that simple. Why should the Canadian government spend
millions of dollars on tax payers money processing these smuggled
Tamils when you could save it by letting these Ship smuggled Tamils in
on the very first day itself as the Immigration Refugee clearing
process seems to be an eye-wash any way? Lets be honest (LankaWeb
: 25 March 2011).

New NGO
policy - The government is to introduce a
policy to monitor the activities of Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGOs) in Sri Lanka, the Presidents office said today. According to
the Presidents office President Mahinda Rajaapaksa has said that
specific guideline are needed for NGOs to obtain funds through the
correct methods and spend in a correct manner. It is the right and
responsibility of the government to monitor how NGOs obtain funds and
how they are spent, President Rajapaksa said. He said that many
millions of rupees come into the country on a monthly and yearly basis
and currently there is no mechanism to monitor from where they come
from and how these funds are utilized. The President, citing India as
an example, added that almost no other country in the world allows
organizations to bring large amounts of money into the country and
spend them on projects of their own without any monitoring by the
government. Therefore, the government intends to work out a
suitable policy to monitor their activities, President Rajapaksa
said. He emphasized that this is not an anti-NGO policy but a valid
mechanism to ensure that the people benefit through such funds (News
Now lk : 25 March 2011).

We will
monitor NGOs: Rajapaksa - Justifying the
move to tighten its monitoring mechanism on Non-Governmental
Organisations, President Mahinda Rajapaksa told Sri Lankan editors on
Friday that the government had the right, and the responsibility to
monitor how NGOs obtained funds and what they were used for.
Responding to the recent debate in the country on NGOs and the role
they played in facilitating the countrys development, he said that
many millions of rupees come into the country. There is no mechanism
to monitor where they come from and how these funds are utilised. The
President referred to the situation in India and said that no other
country allowed organisations to bring large amounts of money into the
country and spend them on projects of their own without any monitoring
by the government. Therefore, the government intends to work out a
suitable policy to monitor their activities, Mr. Rajapaksa said. He
pointed out that specific guidelines are needed for NGOs to obtain
funds through correct methods and spend in a correct manner. Joining
the discussion, Minister of Mass Media and Information Keheliya
Rambukwella said that such fund inflows could even lead to money
laundering, which is now a growing global concern (Hindu
; 25 March 2011).

We want
solution acceptable to all: Rajapaksa - Sri
Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa today said the ongoing talks with
the pro-LTTE TNA were progressing and he would try to accommodate
their aspirations in a solution to the Tamil issue that could be
acceptable to all concerned parties. "My aim is to achieve the
best possible solution acceptable to all," Rajapaksa said.
Addressing the local editors and publishers in his monthly meeting, he
said that Tamil National Alliance (TNA) would want to achieve maximum
with their own proposals. Rajapaksa said that the solution would
never match separatism aimed at by the LTTE. He admonished
politicians to approach the problem devoid of political angles and
they need to be patient as a problem which had lasted over 60 years
needed careful handling. Rajapaksa and the TNA have had three
rounds of talks following a high powered committee appointed to
consult the main Tamil party (Indian
Express : 25 March 2011).

TNA and devolution
- by Gamini Premadasa - It is reported that the "Sri Lankas
Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is in the process of
preparing a set of proposals on the devolution of power to be handed
over to the government". It is implied that proposals would
"pave the way for a permanent solution to the ethnic issue and
address the grievances of the Tamils". If administrative powers
are to be devolved to the provincial bodies, then the justification
for doing so is that the local institutions will have the
responsibility and the authority to manage their own affairs. The
basis for devolution, however, should not be ethnicity, or more
specifically being Tamil, as nearly half the Tamils in Sri Lanka live
outside the territories that the proponents claim as a region for
which devolution is needed. Additionally, such a proposal, if acceded
to, would make a mockery of the sacrifices that the Sinhalese soldiers
made in liberating the North and parts of the East of Sri Lanka from
the clutches of Pirabakaran. The hold that the latter had on the lives
of the Tamils of the North, incidentally, was the real grievance they
had, though few may be ready to admit it. It is time that TNA and its
spokespersons are told that at least now they should consider
themselves as Sri Lankans and not resort to devious measures aimed at
segregation (Island
; 25 March 2011).

No aid to LTTE - US
& India - Suggesting that the New
Delhi's help should be cut off from the Tamil insurgents would be to
acknowledge a separate Tamil Eelam, India said that it has no
problem with Indian assistance flowing through the Sri Lankan
Government to LTTE areas soon after the 2004 Tsunami, a latest
Wikileaks cable revealed. Indian Ministry of External Affairs Director
Taranjit Singh Sandhu explained, however, that New Delhi found unacceptable
the LTTE statement that aid should be given directly to the Tamil
Rehabilitation Organization. The US cable also said in a January 2005
sent by then US Ambassador David Mulford in New Delhi said the
United States Government approach was similar, adding that we have
conveyed the message that US relief could be channeled through others,
but that no US military deployments or military relief projects would
take place in Tiger controlled areas. The Cable also clarified the
extent of the US military presence in Sri Lanka which has attracted
considerable media attention in India, including suggestions that the
GOI needs to check US intrusion in India's backyard. Sandhu
seemed surprised to learn that the widely reported figure of 1,500 US
troops in the country was incorrect, and that the USG was going to
refocus some military assets on Indonesia because India was doing a
very good job of providing assistance to Sri Lanka. (Note: We have
heard from others that the Indian Embassy in Colombo has been a source
of some of these alarmist reports about US military plans for Sri
Lanka.). Sandhu responded that it was wishful thinking on the
part of the LTTE that a disaster relief turf war would drive a wedge
between the US and India. Sandhu was also unaware that conversations
between Washington and New Delhi had taken place through the core
group before any US military movement into Sri Lanka. Sandhu predicted
that the tsunami could have long term political implications in Sri
Lanka. What at one time seemed like critical issues in the conflict
seem irrelevant in light of the much larger issue of surviving the
disaster, he explained. Neither the GOSL or the Tigers are in any
position to resume armed conflict, he observed, and they may be
'forced' to cooperate. If both sides see the current situation as an
opportunity, he continued, that could be the 'silver lining' in this
tragedy. He added, parenthetically, that Foreign Minister Natwar Singh
had canceled his scheduled mid-January trip to Sri Lanka. (Daily
Mirror : 25 March 2011).

Last female Tamil
refugee claimant freed - by Asoka
Weerasinghe, Canada - The Editor (Letters) THE OTTAWA CITIZEN; Sir:
Your news item Last female Tamil refugee claimant freed who
arrived on MV Sun Sea and held in detention since the ships arrival
in British Columbia coast last summer, was predictable as night would
follow day. There is a lesson learnt for the impending ship smuggled
Tamil refugees. Find the $45,000 for the voyage on a refugee smuggling
ship and get over to Canada, and if you can endure eight months of
detention with housing, meals and medical attention provided, you
would eventually get into Canada as a Vienna Convention refugee
claimant. It is that simple. Why should the Canadian government spend
millions of dollars on tax payers money processing these smuggled
Tamils when you could save it by letting these Ship smuggled Tamils in
on the very first day itself as the Immigration Refugee clearing
process seems to be an eye-wash any way? Lets be honest (LankaWeb
: 25 March 2011).

Probe on NGOs: No
witch hunt says Hulugalle - Director General
of the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) Lakshman Hulugalle
says only a handful of NGOs would be subject to an investigation by
the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) with regard to funds
received by them from foreign governments and overseas NGOs over the
years. Hulugalle was responding to a statement issued by the Governing
Council of the National Peace Council (NPC) in response to Executive
Director of the NPC Dr. Jehan Perera being questioned by the CID
regarding funds received by his organisation. The government had no
intention of harassing any NGO or INGO, the official said. The
on-going investigation would focus only on those, who had allegedly
received millions of rupees, particularly in the wake of Feb. 2002
ceasefire agreement brokered by Norway, he said. Hulugalle said:
"The NPC is one of the NGOs under investigation. Well like to
know how funds received from foreign governments were spent. In fact,
Opposition parties of those donor countries should raise the issue in
their parliaments. Naturally their taxpayers should be
worried." Responding to a query, Hulugalle said that the
investigation would be conducted in keeping with Act No 31 of 1980 in
relation to the registration and supervision of NGOs. The NGOs had
attracted heavy flak not only here but even in the Western world, he
said. The recent revelation how former Amnesty International chief
Irene Khan and her deputy had received a special payment of over
800,000 pounds from the London headquartered human rights watchdog
revealed serious irregularities at the highest level of the NGO
industry. Hulugalle said that the AI had backed a major LTTE
propaganda effort against the Sri Lankan government in early 2007 (Island
; 24 March 2011).

In the name of
humanity let the innocents be - ......
Allegations of war crimes, numerous human rights abuses all point
towards a lucrative business for the Tamil Diasporas. As long as they
are able to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government through
various ill informed lobbies of the international community, the lives
they enjoy in these countries would remain justified. Our interview
with the Governor of the Central Bank on the next page exposes the
levels to which such moves are carried out. There is an enormous
amount of money being spent and immense efforts being made by
international groups fed by both local and other international groups.
Their main mission seems to be to damage the image of the country and
attack the economy. Weve had to tackle this at an international
level at regular intervals, he opines questioning the ignorance of
the West that leads to accepting these lies with open arms (Daily
Mirror : 24 March 2011).

Former combatants get
Rs. 1mn to rebuild lives courtesy Central Bank
- Former LTTE combatants received loans amounting to Rs. 1 billion
yesterday (23) through a special scheme initiated by the Central Bank
of Sri Lanka. Around 45 former LTTE cadres in Batticaloa received
loans ranging from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 50,000 through state-owned banking
giant Bank of Ceylon (BOC) to commence their livelihood. Central Bank
Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal addressing a gathering at a ceremony to
mark the disbursement of Rs. 1 million in loans told former combatants
to rebuild their lives through these loans. "I urge you to make
use of this loan-schemes to rebuild your lives," he told them.
The loans carry an interest cost of between 8 to 12 percent and would
help the former combatants start up ventures in electronics and
wiring, motor mechanics, mobile phone repairs and agriculture.
Speaking to journalists, Cabraal said the Central Bank was able to
facilitate the disbursement of loans amounting to around Rs. 2.5
billion in 2010. Around 21,000 loans were granted in the North and
20,000 in the East. Meanwhile, Union Bank opened a branch in
Batticaloa yesterday taking its network up to 23. The once war-torn
Eastern province now has a total of 64 service points including 32
branches of various banks. Meanwhile, an official for BOC said it was
prepared to provide individuals with loans up to Rs. 500,000 if they
were backed by viable business plans. Sri Lanka ended a bloody
thirty-year old conflict in May 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE.
Later that year, Cabraal visited Jaffna where he met representatives
of banks and urged them to generate more lending to stimulate the
war-torn economies of the North and East. He asked them to use
deposits mobilised in the region exclusively to grant loans within the
region itself, and not outside especially Colombo. He also urged banks
to give their regional managers a degree of autonomy in approving
loans so that processes could be expedited (Island
: 23 March 2011).

Open letter to UNSG
Ban Ki-moon - by N.P.Karunadasa, SLAS
(Retired), Kandy - Dear Ban Ki Moon, please allow me to place the
following facts before you and to pose a few questions based on them:
Separatist terrorist violence unleashed by that despicable fascist
megalomaniac mass murderer Velupillai Prabhakaran was without doubt
the worst catastrophe ever faced by this country in its long history
of more than 2500 years. Successive governments grappled with this
problem for over three decades but their attempts failed miserably
mainly due to political bungling resulting from over-subservience to
western powers. This situation led the western powers to believe and
declare that Prabhakaran was invincible. Accordingly they gave
dictates to us to hold negotiations with that mass murderer and to
come to terms regarding his impossible demands which were quite
unacceptable to the majority of the people belonging to every ethnic
group in this country. Our governments followed those dictates
obediently, rapidly dragging the country towards the point of no
return on the way to total disintegration and destruction of our
beloved motherland in the process. This problem was necessarily an
internal matter for Sri Lanka. However the western powers including
the United States, the United Kingdom and France aggravated the
problem by their unwelcome and unwarranted interferences at every turn
in our attempts to address it. It was patently clear that their
intention was to sabotage our attempts. In fact they were indirectly
helping Prabhakaran to establish Eelam by their activities. There was
a very good reason for that from their point of view; with the
emergence of the Peoples Republic of China as an economic giant and
a super power they very badly needed a foothold in close proximity to
China and they were hoping that Prabhakaran would provide that niche
once he established his dream Eelam. Some individual politicians in
those countries such as David Miliband of UK and Kouchner of France
openly helped that mass murderer for another reason, namely, to garner
the votes of the Tamil community residing in their countries (Island
: 23 March 2011).

Police
last week questioned a leading NGO regarding funds received by them.

Rejected asylum
seekers get visas - TWO Sri Lankan men who
were among the first planeload of rejected asylum seekers flown to the
mainland from Christmas Island by the Rudd government to alleviate
crowding have been granted visas after reviewers found them to be at
risk if returned to Sri Lanka. Then-prime minister Kevin Rudd
had said the 89 men were being processed for return home. Lawyer
David Manne said the cases showed it didn't matter whether boats were
brought to Christmas Island or the mainland since a High Court ruling
last year that Australian law applied to both. Advertisement:
Story continues below ''Whether people are now processed under the
onshore regime or offshore regime people must now be assessed
under Australian law and can seek judicial scrutiny,'' Mr Manne
said. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison has said
the government's decision to bring two boats directly to Broome and
Darwin amid Christmas Island unrest could open up greater access to
the courts for appeals. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has
said diverting boats from Christmas Island was a temporary move and
would still see asylum seekers processed under the offshore regime (The
AGE ; 23 March 2011).

Sri Lanka is neither
Egypt nor Libya - By Nalin de Silva - The
elections to most of the local bodies are over and the people have
again voted for the President and his nationalistic policies. Mr.
Mahinda Rajapaksa continues to win elections while Mr. Ranil
Wickremesinghe continues to lose. Nobody is bothered to keep a count
of the elections lost by Mr. Wickremesinghe and it is very very
unlikely that he would win a future election even if the cost of
living soars exponentially. It does not mean that young Mr. Sajith
Premadasa would win an election for the UNP in the near future. This
country has become very much nationalistic and unless the UNP finds a
leader who is more nationalistic than Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, I am
afraid, the UNP cannot think of winning elections for some time. When
the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain fell there were some pundits
who thought that the axe will fall on Mr. Rajapaksa as well without
realising that the brand nationalism of those countries is different
from that in Sri Lanka. As we have said a number of times Sinhala
Buddhist nationalism is dictated by the bottom layers of the society
in the sense that it is the common man who decides the path that
nationalism should take. In contrast, the Tamil nationalism is decided
by the leaders and is imposed on the people and as a result it ends up
as racism against the Sinhala Buddhists with, of course, the blessings
of the English led westerners. The best examples in the Sinhala and
Tamil societies in this regard are the politics of Bandaranaikes (not
Bandaranaike Kumaratunga) and Chelvanayakams. Mr. Bandaranaike had to
follow Sinhala Buddhist nationalism whereas Chelvanayakam moved by his
anti-Sinhala Buddhist attitudes and instigated by the English had to
create a Tamil nationalism among the masses almost from scratch in the
late forties, more than 60 years ago. Prior to that Tamil racism was
confined to the English speaking Tamil Vellalas in Colombo. Mrs.
Bandaranaike, too, understood the phenomenon of Sinhala nationalism
though her children never learnt anything from their parents (Island
; 22 March 2011).

CID probe perturbs
NPC - The government has directed the CID to
investigate how NGOs spent funds received from various countries and
foreign NGOs. The police last week questioned Executive Director of
the National Peace Council Dr. Jehan Perera regarding funds received
by the NPC. The Governing Council of the NPC yesterday issued the
following statement: "Last week, the Executive Director of the
National Peace Council was called to the headquarters of the Criminal
Investigation Department of the Sri Lanka Police. He was informed that
the CID wished to carry out an investigation regarding the
organizations sources of funding, its partners and the activities
it was carrying out. CID officers asked questions about the work of
the National Peace Council and asked for further information. This
investigation was preceded by adverse media commentary in both the
State media and sections of the private media that NPC together with
other non -governmental organizations continue to be funded by foreign
donors despite the end of the war and claiming that they are serving
the interests of their funding partners. The Governing Council is
perturbed that the organization is being investigated by the CID
instead of by the normal civil administration although there is no
prima facie evidence or specific allegation that it is engaging in any
criminal activities. Most of the information that the CID has
requested the organization to furnish has already been provided to the
NGO Secretariat of the Government which is under the purview of the
Ministry of Defence. These include work plans, sources of funding,
financial and audit reports, salaries of staff and annual reports. So
we fail to understand why the CID should investigate the organization.
NPC staff has always cooperated fully with the NGO Secretariat which
is the appropriate government regulatory and monitoring agency (Island
; 22 March 2011).

LLRC sittings in
Ampara and Moneragala - A spokesman for the
LLRC told The Island that the commission would meet in Moneragala and
Kandy from March 25 to 27. The LLRC will meet at the Ampara
District Secretariat on March 25 at 9.45 a.m. The following day, the
commission will visit two villages in Okkampitiya and Buttala, which
suffered LTTE attacks. "We hope to meet those affected by LTTE
violence," the spokesman said. On March 27 at 9.00 am, the
commission will have a session at the Kalmunai Divisional
Secretariat. The spokesman said that any organisation or person
could come forward to make representations at Ampara and Kalmunai (Island
: 22 March 2011).

Blakes
cables exposed awareness of LTTE war strategy

Canadian Court
upholds LTTE fund raising sentence - British
Columbias highest court has rejected the Crowns bid to overturn
a six-month sentence given to a Vaughan man convicted of terrorist
fund-raising. Prapaharan Prapa Thambithurai, 47, of Maple, was
convicted and sentenced in B.C. in May for providing financial
services, knowing they would benefit terrorist group known as the
Tamil Tigers. Mr. Thambithurai, was born and raised in Sri
Lanka, pleaded guilty to the charge in what became Canadas first
successful prosecution of knowingly raising funds for the Tamil
Tigers. In a 3-0 ruling released today, the B.C. Court of Appeal
rejected the Crowns appeal, ruling the six-month sentence fit the
crime. The facts and Mr. Thambithurais personal circumstances
were properly considered during his trial, the B.C. appeals court said
in its ruling. Only weeks after the sentence was handed down,
the federal government said it would appeal, claiming the sentence was
inappropriate and inadequate. During the criminal case,
the Crown argued Mr. Thambithurai should be sentenced to two years.
The charge carries a maximum 10-year sentence. But Mr.
Thambithurai was ordered to serve a sentence that would ordinarily be
viewed as a harsh penalty for a first offender, the B.C. appeals court
ruled. Mr. Thambithurais conviction will have long-lasting
effects, as it will interfere with his ability to travel beyond
Canada, the ruling states. Mr. Thambithurai has been freed after
serving his sentence. Mr. Thambithurai went to a home in Burnaby, B.C.
March 13, 2008 and asked a man to contribute money for humanitarian
aid to help the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, according to a statement of
facts from the criminal case, The man gave Mr. Thambithurai $600 cash,
for which a receipt was issued (Sunday
Observer : 22 March 2011).

Ottawa loses appeal
of sentence for Tamil Tiger - A six-month
sentence handed to the first person in Canada convicted of raising
money for a terrorist group was appropriate for a man whose relatively
small amount of fundraising was on the "low end" of
terrorism-related crimes, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Monday.
Prapaharan Thambithurai, 47, of Maple, Ont., pleaded guilty last year
to raising $600 for the Tamil Tigers and collecting pledges for
another $2,000 from Sri Lankans in the Vancouver area. The Crown
described Thambithurai as a "street-level canvasser" with a
relatively insignificant role in Tamil Tiger fundraising, but still
asked for a two-year sentence. The trial judge sentenced him to six
months -- far less than the 10-year maximum outlined in the
Anti-Terrorism Act passed after the 9-11 attacks in the United States.
The federal government appealed the sentence, arguing six months
didn't properly reflect the seriousness of the terrorism financing
charge. The Crown argued the trial judge was wrong to point to the low
amount of money that Thambithurai had raised, and said the sentence
failed to fulfil Canada's international obligations to deter terrorism
(CTV
News ; 22 March 2011).

Court of Appeal
upholds sentencing of man who raised money for terrorist group -
The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld a six-month jail term for a former
refugee who pleaded guilty to raising money for the banned terrorist
group Tamil Tigers. Crown prosecutors believed the sentence handed to
Prapaharan Thambithurai in May 2010 was too light and appealed it to
the province's highest court. Thambithurai was the first person to be
convicted under Canada's anti-terrorism financing law, which carries a
maximum sentence of 10 years. But on Monday, Justice Kathryn Neilson
said the sentence was sufficient given the circumstances of the case.
"I find nothing to criticize in the approach or the conclusion of
the sentencing judge, and no justification for overturning the
sentence of six months. I would therefore dismiss the appeal,"
Neilson said. "While terrorist offences have unique features,
they are governed by the same sentencing framework and objectives as
other crimes under the Criminal Code, and Parliament has left the full
range of sentencing options, except conditional sentences, open to the
courts for consideration in dealing with them." Thambithurai, a
Toronto resident, was arrested in Vancouver in March 2008 while on a
fundraising trip for the World Tamil Movement, an organization that
collected money for humanitarian relief in Sri Lanka but which the
RCMP said was a front for the Tigers or Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE.). Thambithurai was arrested after he had collected $600
in cash from a former neighbour, Sri Thevendram, a Burnaby baker, and
a pledge for $300 from another person. In his car, the RCMP found a
number of calenders and CDs supporting the armed struggle for a Tamil
homeland. Thambithurai had admitted to police that he knew half of the
money he was collecting would go to the Tamil Tigers. On appeal, the
Crown had argued the sentence was inadequate given the serious nature
of terrorist financing and Canada's international obligations to fight
it (Vancouver
Sun : 21 March 2011).

India desperately
planning to divide Sri Lanka - Despite the
Sri Lankan Freedom Party candidates hardline campaign rhetoric,
Kumar predicted that Rajapakse will moderate himself and the no
peace, no war situation is likely to hold in the near term,
according to the released cable. Further according to the CONFIDENTIAL
cable Mohan Kumar predicted that President Rajapakse will moderate
himself and the no peace, no war situation is likely to hold in
the near term. He suggested the only way forward is to bring Norway
back into the process, look for a Sinhalese consensus and give the
LTTE a take it or leave it offer. He finally suggested the GOIs
first post-election priority is ensuring that the ceasefire does not
break down in light of Rajapakses intentions to review the
Ceasefire Agreement, and welcomed the fact that this converged with US
objectives. Everyone knows the CFA is flawed, he observed, but
its presence is crucial to preventing a return to violence. (The
Nation in Pakistan : 21 March 2011).

Blakes cables
exposed awareness of LTTE war strategy - The
government says Sri Lanka should be grateful to whistle-blowing
website Wiki Leaks for revealing covert diplomatic talk in
Colombo immediately after the Nov. 2005 presidential polls, which set
the stage for eelam war IV. The Wiki Leaks revelations, a highly
placed official told The Island, gave the government an opportunity to
realize the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the all-out war
in Aug. 2006. The spokesman said that Sri Lanka would never have
known the rationale behind the position taken by a section of the
international community if not for Wiki Leaks disclosure of some
statements attributed to various diplomats, including the then US
Ambassador in Colombo Robert O Blake and the likes of Mohan Kumar,
the Joint Secretary (for Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Burma) at the
Indian Ministry of External Affairs. New Delhi believed that the
LTTE engineered Ranil Wickremasinghes defeat at Nov. 2005
presidential elections to pave the way for hawkish Blakes
cables... (Island
: 21 March 2011).

A reply to US
Ambassador - When I read the letter of Ms.
Butenis that appeared in Opinion Column of The Island of the 12th
instant, I was reminded of an incident that happened at the John F.
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, some years ago.
There was a discussion one evening convened by the HIID ( Harvard
Institute of International Development) which was attended by students
from Africa and Asia. Some HIID Officials described their relief work
in Africa. At the conclusion of these descriptions they asked:
"What more do you think we could do?" The spontaneous reply
of an African student was: "If you could only leave us
alone?" Ms. Butenis describes the role of the civil society
movement saying : "Civil society can bring individuals together
to respond to natural disasters .." It is clear that Ms.
Butenis does not understand the dynamics of community action in this
country, in disaster situations. When the Tsunami struck the coasts of
Sri Lanka, people moved with incredible speed to initiate rescue work
and disaster relief before any NGO or the government could move. The
Buddhist monks threw open their temples to accommodate and feed the
victims. They even cooked the food for them. One Monk threw his outer
robe to rescue a young woman who was drifting away. Before long, the
shelves of the super markets were empty because the ordinary people as
if in a frenzy bought up what ever they could lay hands on, to give to
he victims. Little relief groups sprung up from nowhere to carry on
the work in the welfare camps. They did not wait for any foreign
funding. It was the same in the situation when the Tamil people held
hostage by the LTTE broke away and poured into the government held
area. The soldiers both men and women, carried the disabled, the old
and the children on their shoulders, across the lagoon. It was a
moving sight. The people in the South again responded spontaneously to
collect and send relief (Island
: 21 March 2011).

No more HSZs in
Jaffna - The Jaffna town area has no more
High Security Zones (HSZs) with the opening of Victoria Road to the
public since March 17, said a spokesman for the Security Forces
Headquarters, Jaffna. The spokesman told the Daily News that Victoria
Road in Jaffna town remained a restricted zone for 16 years and was
opened to the public on Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksas
instructions. He said that Victoria Road which linked the
Jaffna-Palaly main road and Clock Tower road remained closed for
public due to security reasons since the 51 Division Headquarters and
several other military installations had been established in buildings
on either side. Releasing Victoria Road on Thursday marked the removal
of HSZs in Jaffna town. The spokesman also said that the Army on March
17 officially handed over Subash Hotel on Victoria Road in Jaffna town
in which the 52 Division Headquarters was established since December
1995, to its owner H Hariharan (Daily
News ; 21 March 2011).

Kilinochchi wine in
market soon - Grapes cultivated in 50 acres
of land at Kilinochchi are to be brewed into quality red and white
wine, National Agricultural Development Organization Chief Executive
officer Keerthi P Godagama said. The organization is prepared to
invest over 300 million rupees, he said. A bottle of wine is
sold at Rs 2,000 in Sri Lanka. When wine is brewed here it can be sold
at 75 percent less, Godagama said. Super grade wine was brewed at
Tholagarfi Mission Farm in Atchuvely by Christian pastors which was in
high demand in Jaffna in the past (Daily
News ; 21 March 2011).

TGTE attempts to gain
recognition in South Sudan: Govt must renew counter - terrorism
strategies - Shanaka Jayasekera -
Shanaka Jayasekara A Sri Lankan counter-terrorism expert highlighting
the attempts of pro-LTTE elements trying to get recognition for the
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) from South Sudan, urged
the government to renew its counter-terrorism strategies to defeat the
former LTTE criminal network and its negative political lobbying to
discredit or defame Sri Lanka internationally. Associate Lecturer of
the Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism (PICT),
Macquarie University Australia, Shanaka Jayasekara, told the Sunday
Observer that the government needed to develop close dialogue with the
allies of South Sudan, in particular Kenya which is most influential
in terms of South Sudan. He said the Sri Lankan embassy in Nairobi
needed to urgently take a proactive role preventing any form of
legitimacy being afforded to the TGTE. Though active pro-LTTE lobby
groups are in the UK, Norway, US, Switzerland and Canada, LTTE assets
are believed to be in Eritrea, I dont think any recognised member
of the international community will take the TGTE seriously,
Jayasekara said. Jayasekara cautioned that TGTE in the hands of the
Nediyavan faction could pose a significant political and security
threat to Sri Lanka as the TGTE could act as a catalyst for a LTTE
revivalist movement with a militant agenda. Following are excerpts of
the interview: (Sunday
Observer : 20 March 2011).

Tigers,
peace support groups et al received Rs. 1,800 m from Oslo
- In the wake of Norways admission that it had spent NOK 100
million (over 1,800 million rupees) to support the peace process, it
would be pertinent to establish the total amount of funds received by
various organizations and individuals to promote peace.
According to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)
tender document calling for consultancy services to evaluate Norwegian
peace process in Sri Lanka (1997-2009), out of staggering NOK 2.5 b
Norwegian Development Cooperation with Sri Lanka, NOK 100 m had been
allocated to activities aimed at directly supporting the peace
process, including the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and Peace
Secretariats set up by the government and the LTTE. Government
sources say among the recipients of Norwegian funds allocated for activities
aimed at directly supporting the peace processes were the National
Peace Council, the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Tamil
Rehabilitation Organization, Sri Lanka Press Institute, Peace
Secretariat for Muslims, the Sri Lanka government et al. Sources
say the LTTE Peace Secretariat was the largest recipients of Norwegian
grants during the peace process. Responding to a query by The
Island, a senior official said that the bulk of Norwegian funding had
been made available after the LTTE suspended its participation in
direct talks with the government in April 2003. The official alleged
that the then government of Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe hadnt at
least tried to dissuade Norway from funding the so-called LTTE Peace
Secretariat. In spite of the collapse of the peace process, those
involved in activities aimed at directly supporting the peace
process had received mega funds. Officials said that Norway
had been the single largest contributor of funds to the LTTE Peace
Secretariat and NGOs involved in the peace initiative. Sources
said that UN agencies, too, had provided funds to the LTTE peace
secretariat with the blessings of the then government. The LTTE is
alleged to have spent some of the funds to set up a website, which
went to the extent of featuring suicide squads with LTTE leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran. The Island recently revealed
funding received by the NPC, CPA and TI to the tune of Rs 618.33
million from 26 foreign sources and an undisclosed number of
unidentified sources (Island
; 20 March 2011).

'Wake-up
call for India' - The Indian government
called the November 17, 2005 Sri Lankan Elections a 'wake-up call for
India' and plans to use the new President's upcoming visit to New
Delhi to stress the importance of maintaining the Cease-Fire Agreement
while continuing India's already close relationship with its southern
neighbor, the WikiLeaks reveled. The cable added that the Sri
Lanka watchers in New Delhi were seriously concerned that Rajapakse's
hawkish views may squash the 'last glimmer of hope' for the peace
process. Mohan Kumar the MEA Joint Secretary (Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, Burma) had commented that the LTTE boycott of the
elections was evidence that Prabhakaran 'dumped' the United National
Party's (UNP) Ranil Wickremesinghe in favor of Rajapakse in order to
avoid a return to the negotiating table. Despite the Sri Lankan
Freedom Party (SLFP) candidate's hard-line campaign rhetoric, Kumar
predicted that Rajapakse will moderate himself and the 'no peace, no
war' situation is likely to hold in the near term, according to the
released cable. Further according to the CONFIDENTIAL
cable Mohan Kumar predicted that President Rajapakse will moderate
himself and the ""no peace, no war"" situation is
likely to hold in the near term. He suggested that the only way
forward is to bring Norway back into the process, look for a Sinhalese
consensus and give the LTTE a ""take it or leave
it"" offer. He finally suggested that the GOI's first
post-election priority is ensuring that the cease-fire does not break
down in light of Rajapakse's intentions to
""review"" the Cease-Fire Agreement, and welcomed
the fact that this converged with US objectives. ""Everyone
knows the CFA is flawed,"" he observed, ""but its
presence is crucial to preventing a return to violence. The US cable
classified as CONFIDENTIAL finally reveal that the Government
of India opposeed Rajapakse's campaign rhetoric, but will maintain
public agreement in order to avoid lending any indirect support to the
LTTE. While the Co-Chairs may not be the right forum for Indian
involvement, we are encouraged that New Delhi will use its good graces
with the new President to maintain its close relationship and support
the Cease Fire Agreement.
(Daily Mirror online : 20 March 2011)

Second
Tamil with Tiger ties ordered deported, another ordered released
- A second Tamil migrant from the MV Sun Sea was ordered deported
Thursday after admitting that he was a member of the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam in the early 1990s. But in a separate hearing,
one of the last remaining Tamil women still in detention was ordered
released after the government dropped its claim that a piece of
jewelry she brought with her suggested ties to the Tigers. The
man ordered deported had trained with the LTTE for a year, including
six months with its naval arm, the Sea Tigers, the Immigration and
Refugee Board heard. He subsequently was assigned to protect Tamils
crossing into LTTE-controlled territory from possible attacks from Sri
Lankan forces. After four months, he told his bosses that he
wanted to quit and was punished by being sent to wash dishes for 16
months before being discharged, the board was told. In her
decision, board adjudicator Daphne Shaw Dyck said even though the
migrant had never engaged in battle, his training and his role with
the Tigers was "unambiguous," making him inadmissible to
Canada. The Tamil Tigers engaged in a lengthy civil war with the
Sri Lankan government, which ended with the Tigers defeat in
2009. The group is considered a terrorist organization and is
banned in Canada. The migrant  who cannot be named due to a
publication ban  sat impassively with his arms crossed as the
decision was announced. His duty counsel, Shepherd Moss,
signalled to the board that he intended to apply to the minister of
public safety under a section of law that says someone deemed
inadmissible can be exempted if the minister is satisfied that the
persons "presence in Canada would not be detrimental to the
national interest." Last week, another Tamil migrant was
ordered deported after he, too, was found to have been a member of the
Tigers in the 1990s. His duty counsel, Robin Bajer, says his
client is applying to the government for a pre-removal risk
assessment, in which he will argue that he faces a serious risk of
persecution or torture if returned to Sri Lanka. If the
government finds that such a risk exists, that could result in him
being allowed to stay in Canada, though he would be ineligible for
permanent-resident status. The government is seeking the removal of
more than 40 of the Sun Sea migrants, mostly on the grounds of
membership with the Tigers or serious criminality (Island
; 20 March 2011).

Plotted to enter
Australia illegally - A group of Fifty Two
persons including twelve children - nine boys and three girls - were
taken into custody from several lodges in Wellawatte on suspicion of
planning to illegally enter Australia on Tuesday. They were produced
before the Colombo Chief Magistrate Rashmi Singapulli and remanded
till March 29. The suspects are from Killinochi and Mullaitivu.
The CID filing a B report said that on information received, the
police had conducted a search operation and arrested the suspects
under the Immigration and Emigration Act. The multi day fishing vessel
named Ave Maria which the group had planned to use to make the
trip to Australia was also impounded in Chilaw and is presently held
by the SL Navy. Attorneys at Law Rajakulendran, D.S.Niranjan, M.Nasser
and A.C.M. Ismail appearing for the suspects submitted that the
suspects were only lodgers. They did not plan to enter Australia
illegally, he said. The children were held in the cell outside the
Chief Magistrates Court along with their mothers. Their fathers were
in the adjacent cell (Island
: 20 March 2011).

Another group of
rehabilitated former LTTE cadres will be released within this month
- Commissioner General of Rehabilitations Brigadier Sudantha
Ranasinghe says another group of rehabilitated former LTTE cadres will
be released before the end of this month. There are about 4,600 former
LTTE cadres in the rehabilitation camps. Out of them 71 are female
cadres. About 5,900 LTTE members have been rehabilitated and released
to the society as normal civilians so far. The brigadier said that all
these cadres have been given proper vocational training with spiritual
nourishment. A follow up programme is also underway to monitor the
social life of these rehabilitated LTTE cadres (SLBC
: 20 March 2011).

On the BS Rump
of Civil Society- By Malinda
Seneviratne - Courtesy: Lakbima News - Time passes. This is known.
This is why there exists a word called chronology. There is
sequence. About 10 days ago, The Island carried a news story about the
amount of donor funds received by three prominent NGOs which have for
a long time operated as though they constitute the entirety of civil
society or at least are the principal representatives of that
social category that is loosely or never defined. The Centre for
Policy Alternatives (CPA), the National (sic) Peace Council (NPC) and
Transparency International (TI) are reported to have collectively
received a staggering sum of over Rs. 600 million over the past three
years alone (Sinhale
Hot News : 20 March 2011).

Canadian
Immigration and Refugee Board have ordered the deportation of a second
Sri Lankan MV Sun Sea migrant

Govt,
TNA dialogue resumes - The government and
the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have agreed in unison to continue
their dialogue with each other. This decision was taken after
representatives of both the government and the TNA met at the
Presidential Secretariat on Friday (18). Both parties met for the
third time to discuss issues connected with resettlement of internally
displaced persons and information relating to detainees. Both sides
proceeded to discuss appropriate constitutional arrangements to meet
the aspirations of both Tamils and Sinhalese. A letter addressed to
the TNA following the meeting signed by Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena has
stated that both parties will continue their dialogue with a view to
arriving at a structure to fulfill the aspirations of all the people
living in Sri Lanka (The
Nation : 20 March 2011).

When
India nearly crossed the Rubicon on Sri Lanka
- ..... According to one cable sent by the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi
on October 14, 2005 (42686: confidential), Anupam Ray, Deputy
Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, told Embassy officials
in New Delhi that the peace process has deteriorated, LTTE leader
Prabhakaran is more unpredictable than ever, and Norway has outlived
its utility. Thus, the time has come for India to reengage,
Ambassador Robert Blake quotes Mr. Ray as saying. While India
would prefer to wait until there is a Sinhalese consensus about the
outline of a solution, the Government of India can't wait
forever because Prabhakaran wants Tamil Eelam in his lifetime. Mr.
Ray was clear that India did not want to play mediator or facilitator
and would not join officially the Co-chairs', as the grouping of
Norway, Japan, U.S. and the European Union, who led to the 2003
conference of donors to Sri Lanka in Tokyo, came to be known. However,
it would take a more active role in the donors' group.....
(Hindu : 20 March 2011).

Mounting pressure for
international probe - Alleged war crimes
With just ten days to go for the release of the UN panels report on
alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, some countries and pro-Tiger lobbies
are exerting pressure in many ways. The report is to be handed over to
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon before March 31. The three-member
panel led by Indonesias Marzuki Darusman is to hold a news
conference after the handing over. The Sunday Times reported
exclusively on March 6 that a delegation led by Attorney General Mohan
Peiris met the panel in New York in a meeting that was not made public
by either side. The latest development on this issue is a meeting of
the London-based Tamil Global Forum. Members of the Forum buttonholed
Indian Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi soon after she delivered
a Commonwealth lecture in London, and tried to get their views across
to her. The Forum claimed in a statement yesterday that Ms. Gandhi
said, she is very concerned about the situation in Sri Lanka. It
added the Indian government had asserted its serious concerns to
Sri Lanka. Ms. Gandhis husband, former Indian Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated by the LTTE. This week, there was also
activity in the British House of Commons. An All-Party Parliamentary
Group for Tamils led by Lee Scott said in a statement that nothing
but an independent international inquiry into alleged war crimes will
satisfy the international community. Also in the House of Commons,
Labour Party MP Jim Cunningham asked the Secretary of State for
Commonwealth about the status of the Human Rights Commission in Sri
Lanka. Alistair Burt, the Secretary, replied that the UN Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights downgraded one of full compliance
with the Paris principles to one of non-compliance and reflected
concerns over its political and financial independence. He said the
new Commission had been appointed after the 18th Amendment and added
we have raised with the Sri Lankan government the importance of
having an effective Commission. Last week, in an address to the
Asia Society in New York, Robert Blake, US Under-Secretary for Asia
and Central Asia, noted Our strong preference is that the Sri
Lankan government establish its own transparent process that meets
international standards. However, in the absence of such a mechanism,
there will be mounting pressure for an international mechanism. (Sunday
Times : 20 March 2011).

Ambassador
Wickramasuriya calls on AI for dialogue -
Sri Lankas Ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya
has written to the Amnesty International, calling for a dialogue on
issues related to Sri Lanka. I have read recently of allegations
that Amnesty International has levelled against Sri Lanka. I am
writing today in the hope of opening a dialogue with Amnesty
International on these and other issues, the Ambassador states in
the letter. He adds that the people of Sri Lanka need and are
receiving international community support for reconciliation,
reconstruction and healing and that he feels the campaign by Amnesty
International to criticise Sri Lanka undermines these immediate needs.
I am sure that Sri Lankans and Amnesty International are in
agreement over the need for long-term, lasting peace. That is, after
all, why we established the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation
Commission. I understand that your organisation does not feel that the
LLRC is a valid process that will meet that need, Ambassador
Wickramasuriya writes (The
Nation : 20 March 2011).

Ms. Butenis in NGO
boat without a paddle - Part 1 - by H. L. D.
Mahindapala - The American Ambassadress, Ms. Patricia Butenis, has
come out fighting on behalf of the NGOs. This should be greeted with
applause because her intervention, coming from the biggest power on
earth, adds an extra dimension to the on-going local debate on NGOs
 the most obscene four-letter word in the Sri Lankan political
vocabulary. The fact that she is throwing punches at the critics of
NGOs is also politically significant because it means that the
cornered NGOs have recruited the best heavy weight they could find to
come out fighting on their behalf. Of course, her short sermon
on the role of civil society seems innocuous on the surface. It must
also be conceded that some of her arguments referring to social
services rendered by NGOs are valid. These non-political organizations
deliver humanitarian services globally in times of crises and in peace
times too. No one cavils about their well-meaning and well-directed
services to the needy. However, it is her defence of NGOs in general,
which includes foreign-funded anti-national interventionists like
Jehan Perera and Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, (disguised, of course, as
sadhus of civil society) that raises disturbing issues about the
NGOs and their questionable role in Sri Lankan politics (LankaWeb
: 19 March 2011).

How serious is
America about human rights?-Part II - by H.
L. D. Mahindapala - The political agenda of Jehan Perera and Paki
Saravanamuttu was to stop the war to give breathing space for
Prabhakaran to strengthen his hand to regroup and prolong the war 
a programme that would have kept the NGOs in business forever. They
were running from Western capital to capital lobbying in the corridors
of power to put pressure on the government to stop the war and save
Prabhakaran from extinction. Jehan talks of the peoples
understanding and support for a negotiated peace. History proves
that the only man who understood the peoples need and won their
support was President Mahinda Rajapakse. The history of Vadukoddai War
reveals that though Jehan and Paki recited, ad nauseam, their
futile mantras for ending the war they never understood the ground
realities that could prepare the possibilities for peace. As in the
case of Prabhakaran war was a necessary condition for the NGOs to
survive. Put simply, they have been war-mongers disguised as
peaceniks. Manufacturing excuses for the military solution endorsed in
the Vadukoddai Resolution (May 14, 1976), blaming the Sinhala-Buddhists
for everything, was another means of justifying Prabhakarans
violence and prolonging his war for 33 years. The Vadukoddai War was a
bonanza to them. A whole crop of NGOs proliferated and thrived by
justifying the Vadukoddai violence to prolong the war. Their partisan
politics argued for a negotiated settlement when they knew that no
negotiations would succeed with Prabhakaran. The hard evidence proved
incontrovertibly that no negotiations  short of a separate state
 would work with intransigent Prabhakaran (LankaWeb
: 19 March 2011).

CHANDRA
WICKRAMASINGHE DISMISSED FROM CARDIFF UNIVERSITY IN WALES
- By Walter Jayawardhana in Los Angeles - Professor Chandra
Wickramasinghe, the chief exponent of the theory that planets like
earth have been seeded for life by comets has been dismissed from his
post at the Cardiff University in Wales, United Kingdom. The
university informed the Sri Lanka born British scientist that they are
withdrawing funding for his department, the astrobiology center. The
UK parliament magazine reported the removal of Wickramasinghe in a
story headlined Killing the Goose that lays the golden eggs.
Wickramasinghe believes that life was seeded by comets and asteroids
and pathogens like virus for influenza also arrived here from deep
space taking hitch hikes on such astral bodies. Professor
Wickramasinghe, a long time collaborator with renown astrophysicist
Sir Fred Hoyle was recently drawn into controversy when he supported ,
NASA scientist Richard Hoover who claimed he found fossilized evidence
of life in three meteorites. Wickramasinghe was the only paid worker
of the Astro biological Center of the University. The other research
fellows and associates worked in an honorary capacity and it cost the
university only about 24,000 USdollars an year (LankaWeb
; 19 March 2011).

Canadian court
releases female Sri Lankan Tamil migrant detained for suspected links
to LTTE - Canadian court has ordered the
release of a female Tamil migrant who was further detained in a
federal correctional facility because of a necklace that allegedly
linked her to the banned terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam of Sri Lanka. The woman and her children arrived in
Vancouver aboard the human smuggling ship MV Sun Sea last August and
they were detained in the Burnaby youth corrections facility since the
arrival. She was the last one to be detained at the facility out
of the 25 female migrants who were detained at the facility on their
arrival in Vancouver. She was kept in the Burnaby jail when the Canada
Border Services Agency at an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing in
Vancouver argued that the necklace (thali) she wore is believed to be
a necklace given by the banned terrorist group LTTE for their
members. Her lawyer has argued that the necklace was given to
her by her husband on their wedding day and there is nothing
suspicious about it. Earlier this month the court ordered to
detain her for another week but at an urgent hearing on Thursday, the
court has ordered to release her on a $1,000 bond although the CBSA
had argued that the woman is a flight risk and should be detained
further (Colombo
page ; 19 March 2011).

EXCLUSIVE! The CPAs
millions! - The Center for Policy
Alternatives (CPA) has its election monitoring arm styled the Center
for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) and when the government
calls an election, they go around to the western embassies in Colombo
collecting money to monitor the polls. This is done by all the foreign
funded elections monitoring organisations in Colombo. The money that
flows in is mind boggling. To just take the CPA for example, the
funding that came in for just the presidential election last year was
as follows. This is not an exhaustive list, and could be only the tip
of the iceberg. We have no idea of how much they got in total and we
mention here only the transactions about which we have received
information. Presidential Elections January 2010 - Netherlands
Ministry for Development Cooperation - Rs. 20.6 million (Project
duration -1/12/2009 to 31/3/2010); The German Federal Minister for
Foreign Affairs  Rs. 22.4 million (project duration 1/1/2010 
31/3/2010) ;British High Commission, Colombo - Rs 3 million for the
Eastern province only (Project duration 15/12/2009 to 31 January
2010); US Department of State  90,000 US$ (Over Rs. 10 million) for
publicity campaign against election violence for both the presidential
and parliamentary elections of 2010 (Island
: 18 March 2011).

Subash Hotel handed
back to Owner; No More HSZs in Jaffna - The
famous Subash Hotel on the Victoria road in Jaffna town was officially
handed over to its owner by the Sri Lanka Army on Thursday (17). On
instructions of Secretary Defence Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the hotel
building was handed over to Mr. H. Hariharan by the Commander Security
Forces - Jaffna (SF-J) Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe paving way
for remaining private properties occupied by the Army to be sused by
their legitimate owners. On receiving the documents with regard to
handing over the building from the Commander SF-J in the presence of
Jaffna District Parliamentarian Mr. M. Chandrakumar, Government Agent
Jaffna Mrs. Emelda Sukumar, General Officer Commanding (GOC) 51
Division Major General Janaka Walgama, Mayoress Jaffna Mrs. Yogeswari
Pathgunarasa and other senior Army officers, expressed his sincere
thanks to the Army and the government for arrangements made for him to
get his property back in good condition. Army having overpowered LTTE
terrorist movements in the Jaffna town area, troops of the 52 Division
made the hotel their Headquarters in December 1995 for easy
administration and command over its troops and to monitor and control
terrorist activities in the area. In May 1996, 52 Division
Headquarters was replaced by the 51 Division. Since then 51 Division
Headquarters had been using the building on rent basis. A monthly
rental of Rs. 90000/= was paid from the beginning and it was increased
to Rs. 125000/= since January 2010 (Sri
Lanka Defence Ministry : 18 March 2011).

US tries to defend
the indefensible - by Ira De Silva, London,
Canada - Reading the letter from Ms. Butenis in defence of NGOs, one
was surprised, as the U.S. is so strong on the word accountability
demanding it from all and sundry. Why would Ms. Butenis try to
explain/defend any call for NGOs to be accountable for the monies
received and provide the public with audited accounts of the millions
they have supposedly spent on the upliftment, development and other
meritorious actions they are claiming to use the money for,
particularly as they are called "non profit organizations"?
What has been published are the amounts they have received but for
which civil society has not been provided details of expenditure. It
is no secret that those who run these NGOs allocate to themselves
the necessary millions to support their expensive lifestyles. In
keeping with U.S. "democratic traditions" Ms. Butenis should
support the call for accountability and ask these NGOs that have
received U.S. taxpayer funding to provide audited accounts. That
simple answer would put paid to any doubts and criticism.. It is not
too late for Ms. Butenis to call for and make public full accounts of
money allocated and the projects that have benefited. If she sets the
example, perhaps other countries that funded these NGOs could be
persuaded to follow the U.S. lead (Island
; 18 March 2011).

Kumaran Pathmanathan
(KP) deserves death sentence and not 100 acres
- By Malin Abeyatunga, Melbourne, Australia - Is Kumaran Pathmanathan
(KP) worth more than a Dead Tamil Tiger? If the latest report to
say that KP will be rewarded with 100 acres is true, there is
something wrong somewhere with the Governments attitude towards KP.
The public would like to know what information the Government has
managed to extract from KP so far to reward KP with a NGO ( Is the
central Bank monitoring the funds this NGO gets?) and 100 acres. The
public would wish to know whether the Govt. has captured with the help
of KP any of LTTEs remaining ships after the defeat of LTTE
militarily. We are thankful for the excellent naval operations during
the peak of LTTE power which destroyed six or seven LTTE floating
warehouses of illegal arms (ships) in the mid seas. Nothing is heard
of the remaining LTTE ships after the war albeit man behind the scene
KP has been in custody for over an year but treated not as a terrorist
but a right royal. There are some pertinent questions that need
answers. Has the Government managed to get enough information from KP
about the kingpins of various dubious LTTE fronts spread in the
western world? Has the Government managed to get any access to LTTEs
illegal and legal businesses thro KP? Who are the western politicos,
foreign journalists of electronic and print media, foreign VIP
sympathizers and diplomats in LTTEs payroll and perks? Are there
any local NGOs, politicians and journalists who have been receiving
kickbacks from LTTE? Has the Government managed to get enough details
of KPs modus operandi of procuring arms and shipping them to LTTE
areas ? KP should have answers for all these queries. We shouldnt
forget that KP is a shrewd and cunning as a fox and can never be
trusted. It appears that he is taking the Government for a ride. He
was the chief financial wizard of LTTE international operations with
several foreign passports, fake visas, carrying many aliases and
flying from one country to another evading all the securities of the
countries he passed by. He was the king pin of the LTTE in procuring
illegal arms for LTTE. We should not forget that he even made a last
minute attempt to save Prabhakaran by secretly negotiating with Eric
Solheim and a top notch UN official (Under Secretary John Holmes) to
stop the war operations launched by the Sri Lankan forces (Sri
Lanka News Online ; 18 March 2011).

Sri Lankan Tamils
protest Sonia Gandhi's London visit - Sri
Lankan Tamils protested outside a London venue where Congress
President Sonia Gandhi delivered a lecture on Thursday.
Protestors shouted anti-India slogans and demanded that New Delhi take
swift action to protect the interests of Sri Lankan Tamils.
Gandhi was in London to deliver the 14th Commonwealth Lecture on the
subject 'Women as Agents of Change'. It may be recalled that the
Sri Lankan Army crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in
May 2009, while nearly three million Sri Lankan Tamils were relocated
to refugee camps elsewhere on the island. A majority of them
have since been resettled in their original villages but still need
assistance for accommodation and restart their livelihood (Sify
News : 18 March 2011).

Second Tamil with
Tiger ties ordered deported, another ordered released
- A second Tamil migrant from the MV Sun Sea was ordered deported
Thursday after admitting that he was a member of the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam in the early 1990s. But in a separate hearing,
one of the last remaining Tamil women still in detention was ordered
released after the government dropped its claim that a piece of
jewelry she brought with her suggested ties to the Tigers. The
man ordered deported had trained with the LTTE for a year, including
six months with its naval arm, the Sea Tigers, the Immigration and
Refugee Board heard. He subsequently was assigned to protect Tamils
crossing into LTTE-controlled territory from possible attacks from Sri
Lankan forces. After four months, he told his bosses that he
wanted to quit and was punished by being sent to wash dishes for 16
months before being discharged, the board was told. In her
decision, board adjudicator Daphne Shaw Dyck said even though the
migrant had never engaged in battle, his training and his role with
the Tigers was "unambiguous," making him inadmissible to
Canada. The Tamil Tigers engaged in a lengthy civil war with the
Sri Lankan government, which ended with the Tigers' defeat in 2009 (The
Vancouver Sun : 17 March 2011).

Second Tamil migrant
ordered deported - A Sri Lankan man who
arrived aboard a cargo ship last year has been ordered deported after
admitting to once being a member of the Tamil Tigers, but insisting he
quit the banned terrorist group nearly two decades ago and never
participated in combat. The man is the second passenger on the
MV Sun Sea to be ordered out of Canada because of membership in the
Tigers, but his lawyer signalled Thursday he'll appeal directly to the
federal public safety minister to fight the deportation. Both
people were among nearly 500 Tamil migrants who landed off the West
Coast last August and immediately made refugee claims. The federal
government has accused more than 30 of the passengers of having links
to terrorism, war crimes or human smuggling. The Immigration and
Refugee Board heard the man joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam  or LTTE  as a young man about 20 years ago in Sri Lanka.
By then, Tiger rebels had already begun what would be a bloody 26-year
fight against the Sri Lankan government. The civil war is believed to
have left 70,000 people dead before it ended in 2009 with the defeat
of the Tigers. The man completed more than a year of training before
he was assigned to a security detail off the coast of Sri Lanka, his
lawyer, Shepherd Moss, told the IRB hearing. Mr. Moss said the man's
assignment was to protect Tamil citizens who were crossing into
Tiger-controlled territory, but he never had a combat role. The man
asked to leave several years later, said Mr. Moss, and he was punished
with forced manual labour for more than a year before he was
eventually discharged. He was discharged from the LTTE and he's had
no further dealings with that group since then, Mr. Moss said. So
he joined voluntarily and he left voluntarily. Immigration and
Refugee Board adjudicator Daphne Shaw Dyck said she was required by
law to issue the deportation order because the man admitted membership
in the Tigers, which the Canadian government considers a banned
terrorist group. Even though you stated you did not engage in
battle, your training and role within the LTTE is admitted and
unambiguous, Ms. Shaw Dyck told the man, who sat with his arms
crossed and appeared to be listening intently (The
Globe & Mail : 17 March 2011).

Sri
Lankan drug peddler arrested in Navi Mumbai
- Anti-terrorism squad (ATS) sleuths on Tuesday arrested a Sri Lankan
drug peddler, with suspected links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Ealam (LTTE). The peddler, Rajan Silithuria alias Rajan alias Kartik
(45), was hiding in Kopar Khairane in Navi Mumbai. "Our Thane
unit arrested Kartik after we received information that he was hiding
in Navi Mumbai. We are interrogating him," said ATS deputy
commissioner of police, Pradip Sawant. Kartik, police sources said,
did not have any business or known sources of income in Navi Mumbai.
"We suspect he was using illegal money obtained through
drug-peddling," an officer said. The Narcotics Control Bureau
(NCB) in Chennai had seized three kg heroin at the international
airport, but Kartik had managed to flee from there. A Chennai court
had issued a non bailable warrant against him, too. "He fled from
Chennai and came to Mumbai after the case. He was staying in Matunga,
Chembur and then went on to Navi Mumbai. He had called his wife to the
city and was staying with his family," an officer said. The
police officer added that his wife has a bank account and they were
probing if there were suspicious transactions. "He and his wife
did not have any known source of income. We are probing how she got
money and who sent it," he added (Times
of India : 17 March 2011).

Time for
civil society to recover lost or robbed identity card
- .... These two organizations and Transparency International have
received over Rs 600 million from foreign sources over the past three
years. They are the king-pins among those who wave the civil-society
flag. They are hardly representative of anyone except the rabidly
anti-Sinhala, anti-Buddhist, Colombo-based, English-educated sections
of the population which constitute less than 0.0001 percent of the
citizenry. The claim to be empowering people is laughable
for many of these organizations were virtually operating as the
mouthpieces and brand-managers of the LTTE, an organization that not
only disempowered people, but actually butchered them in the
thousands. If the government is cagey about such NGOs, as
claimed in the news report, it is something that I would welcome and
applaud, not because issues of governance, transparency and
accountability are of no relevance (they certainly are) but that these
operators need to be investigated thoroughly. It is something that is
demanded by their long and dubious history of operating as agents of
destabilization. J Weliamuna, the former director of
Transparency Internationals Colombo office, has said The
Government sees everybody as a challenge and has a phobia against NGOs.
This is rubbish, unless he believes that the CPA, NPC and TI have the
authority to speak for the entirety that is called civil society.
Certain outfits are being scrutinized, yes. It is something that
should have been done a long time ago. Weliamuna says, the
government views civil society (again that catch-all term!) its only
challenge since the Opposition is weak. Thats self-image.
The truth is that Weliamuna and his friends cannot get 100 people for
a demonstration on any issue. It is high time that civil
society stepped forward and demand that the likes of Weliamuna hand
back the term. They do not have the right to use it. Theyve
abused it and this is because civil society in the main had not
known it could be called civil society and for this reasons a
bunch of self-seeking rogues grabbed it and along with it the rights
to represent. Yes, I am all for peoplizing the term civil
society. In the interest of democracy and true representation (Daily
News : 17 March 2011).

Sri
Lankas UN Envoy Kohona answers global critics on discrimination,
Reconciliation and feeding Tamil Tiger terrorists
- Sri Lankas ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Palitha Kohona at
an Asia Society forum on Sri Lanka Looks Ahead  Will Prosperity
Bring Peace held March 14 in New York reminded the international
community, and US State Departments Robert Blake another panelist,
that his country would have been the only nation in the world that fed
the terrorists fighting the government, maintained health and
education in the rebel held areas, ensured a constant flow of food and
other essentials to the rebel controlled districts while battling them
to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation.
Ambassador Kohona reminded those who attended the Asia Society
gathering and those who listened and watched the proceedings through
the Internet, and also for the consumption of the U.S. State
Department whose representative was at the podium, that since the end
of the war in May 2009 defeating the separatist Tamil Tigers the
Mahinda Rajapaksa regime took a conciliatory attitude toward the
former Tiger combatants in sending them through a rehabilitation
process and finding them gainful employment while settling them in
their native villages and town in the former combat areas in the north
and east of the country. He also echoed the sentiments of the
Rajapaksa administration of its untiring endeavor to bring economic
progress to the nation that had a 27-year set back due to the battle
to defeat the separatist/terrorist LTTE which will have equitable
distribution among all races and nationalities in Sri Lanka. Dr.
Kohona also reminded at this Asia Society forum about the manner in
which his government has taken swift measures to re-settle the close
to 200,000 Tamil refugees, find them gainful employment, extra steps
taken to rebuild the economy of the predominantly Tamil north and east
of the country which had a severe setback due to the war and move
forward to repair the damage incurred to all ethnic communities
because of the 27-year disruption. The submission made by Robert
Blake, former American ambassador to Sri Lanka and current assistant
secretary of the US State Department in charge of South and Central
Asian Affairs, at this Asia Society forum is carried by the Asian
Tribune elsewhere. Following is the complete submission of Dr. Palitha
Kohona at the Asia Society forum: (Asian
Tribune : 17 March 2011).

Role of Civil Society -P. Butenis
 March 12,2011 - by Ira de Silva London,
Canada - .... Reading the letter from Ms. Butenis in defence of NGOs
was a surprise particularly as the U.S. is so strong on the word
accountability demanding it from all and sundry. Why would Ms. Butenis
try to explain/defend any call for NGOs to be accountable for the
monies received and provide the public with audited accounts of the
millions they have supposedly spent on the upliftment, development and
other meritorious actions they are claiming to use the money for,
particularly as they are called non profit organizations? What
has been published are the amounts they have received but for which
civil society has not been provided details of expenditure. It is no
secret that those who run these NGOs allocate to themselves the
necessary millions to support their expensive lifestyles. In keeping
with U.S. democratic traditions Ms. Butenis should support the
call for accountability and ask these NGOs that have received U.S.
taxpayer funding to provide audited accounts. That simple answer would
put paid to any doubts and criticism.. It is not too late for Ms.
Butenis to call for and make public full accounts of money allocated
and the projects that have benefited. If she sets the example, perhaps
other countries that funded these NGOs could be persuaded to follow
the U.S. lead.... (LankaWeb
: 17 March 2011).

How
India kept pressure off Sri Lanka - In the
final stages of the war with the LTTE, New Delhi played all sides but
discouraged international attempts to halt the operations. India
played a key role in warding off international pressure on Sri Lanka
to halt military operations and hold talks with the LTTE in the
dramatic final days and weeks of the war in 2009, confidential U.S.
Embassy cables accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks showed. The
cables reveal that while India conveyed its concern to Sri Lanka
several times about the perilous situation that civilians caught
in the fighting faced, it was not opposed to the anti-LTTE operation.
They also show that India worried about the Sri Lankan President's post-conflict
intentions, though it believed that there was a better chance of
persuading him to offer Sri Lankan Tamils an inclusive political
settlement after the fighting ended. After its efforts to halt the
operation failed, the international community resigned itself to
playing a post-conflict role by using its economic leverage,
acknowledging that it had to rope in India for this. In the closing
stages of the war, New Delhi played all sides, always sharing the
concern of the international community over the humanitarian situation
and alleged civilian casualties in the Sri Lankan military campaign,
but discouraging any move by the West to halt the operations. In
January 2009, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee made a short
notice visit to Sri Lanka. The Indian Deputy High Commissioner in
Colombo, Vikram Misri, briefed the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission and
other diplomats about the visit, in a cable dated January 29, 2009
(189383: confidential). At a two-hour meeting at President Rajapaksa's
residence, attended by the army chief, defence secretary and other top
officials, Mr. Mukherjee stressed he was in Colombo with no
objective other than to ensure that human rights and safety of
civilians were protected. Mr. Misri told the diplomats that while
domestic political considerations were a factor in the Indian
calculus, New Delhi is deeply worried about the humanitarian crisis
in the Vanni. He added that Indians throughout the country, not just
in Tamil Nadu, are troubled by the high level of casualties sustained
by Tamil civilians caught in the crossfire. From Mr. Mukherjee's
statement at the end of his visit, it was clear that India did not
oppose the operations. I stressed that military victories offer a
political opportunity to restore life to normalcy in the Northern
Province and throughout Sri Lanka, after twenty three years of
conflict. The President assured me that this was his intent. (Hindu
: 16 March 2011).

Karunas
saviour on UPFA ticket at Eravur - UNPer
Syed Ali Zahir Moulana, who lost his National List seat in June 2004
for helping renegade LTTE field commander Karuna Amman to flee
Batticaloa and take refuge in Colombo, is contesting LG polls today
(17) on the UPFA ticket for the Eravur Pradeshiya Sabha. Moulanas
move helped the military to exploit the split within the LTTE to
demoralize the entire group, intelligence sources say (Island
; 16 March 2011).

Sri
Lankan suspected of having links with LTTE held in Mumbai -
A Sri Lankan national, suspected to having links with terrorist outfit
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), was arrested from his hideout
in neighbouring Navi Mumbai by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad
(ATS). The accused Rajan Silithuriya alias Rajan alias Kartik, hailing
from Sri Lanka, was picked up from his hideout in Koparkhairane area
of Navi Mumbai last night. He had been shifting places in the Mumbai
suburbs since the past four years, the ATS said. According to the ATS,
Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on April 13, 2007 had seized three kgs
of heroin at the Chennai International airport. The concerned special
court had declared Silithuriya as a wanted accused in the case and had
also issued a non-bailable warrant against him. The ATS had received
specific information that Silithuriya was staying in Navi Mumbai
following which he was arrested. "We are probing if Silithuriya
has any links with LTTE or any other group in Mumbai. Preliminary
probe revealed the accused had stayed in Matunga, Chembur and Navi
Mumbai areas since past four years," said Additional Director
General (ATS) Rakesh Maria. The Chennai NCB would seek his remand from
the ATS soon, the ATS officials said adding further probe was on (Sify
News ; 16 March 2011).

Sri
Lankas Defense Secretary rejects calls for reducing the Security
Forces - Sri Lankas Defense Secretary
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that a number of measures have been taken in
international arena to prevent the LTTE raising its head again. He has
disclosed that legal actions have already been taken against some pro-LTTE
groups in foreign countries. Participating in a Private TV discussion
programme the Defense Secretary pointed out that it is the
responsibility of all Sri Lankans to leave no room for terrorism to
re-emerge. He further said defence strategies in the country have not
changed despite defeat of terrorism and the death of Prabhakaran. He
emphasized that the Government is not ready to reduce the strength of
the security forces, although some people demand to do so, in order to
pave the way for terrorism and disorder to revive in the country. Mr.
Rajapaksa said that the strength and skills of the security forces
will be productively utilized for the development of the country. He
said that following the war victory many investors are now coming to
Sri Lanka, and Colombo city is being maintained as a clean and a
beautiful location to attract more tourists. Referring to the shanties
that dot many parts of the Colombo city presently, the Defense
Secretary said that about 35,000 houses with all amenities will be
constructed during the next few years to replace shanties in the city
and house the shanty dwellers. On the subject of crimes, the Mr.
Rajapaksa said that constant programmes are underway to bring down
organized crimes, and proper execution of police and the judicial
system will enormously contribute to the development of a country. The
Defence Secretary therefore stressed the need to elect local
government representatives loyal to the government in order to carry
forward these moves successfully, without any hindrance (Asian
Tribune : 16 March 2011).

What was really happening
in Sri Lanka was that a blood thirsty racist group led by
some misled Tamils called LTTE was terrorizing against the Government
of Sri Lanka and its people irrespective of their ethnicity with an
intention of carving out a separate state. There is no conflict as
such between Sinhalese and Tamil communities in Sri Lanka. In fact,
the majority of the Tamil community lives in peace and harmony among
the Sinhalese population through out the country apart from the
Northern part of Sri Lanka. The entire Sinhalese and the Muslims
population who lived in the Northern area for centuries were either
killed or chased away completely by the LTTE Tamil Tiger terrorists.
At the moment, not a single Sinhalese or Muslim is living in Jaffna,
but, many thousands of Tamils are living in Colombo in peace with
the other communities. Based on 2001 census, the Tamil population in
Colombo district is 12.1% (see
2001 census). So, who is discriminated ? Tamils or Sinhalese? Do
you need more evidence ?

http://www.apiwenuwenapi.com/
is the official web site of the Api Wenuwen Api fund raising
campaign. The Api Wenuwen Api Fund is a collaboration between the
The Ministry of Defence and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to build
50,000 houses for the serving Tri-Service personnel. The gift of
housing is one of the best and most tangible ways to demonstrate our
gratitude and appreciation. This is the time for all Sri Lankans to
support our brothers and sisters who are committed to bringing peace
to our motherland Sri Lanka. All contributions from the campaign and
fund raising events will be donated to Api Wenuwen Api Housing
Project in Sri Lanka.

Thawalama
Development Foundation

No. 5,
Rajakeeya Mawatha, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka.

The
Thawalama Development Foundation (TDF) was established on 1994
April 25th to support and assist in the implementation of
Project Thawalama approved by the Ministry of Defense on 1994
January 14th. http://thawalama.org

Solheim
responds to allegations targeting Norway at LLRC In SL lies
are used for political gains or to taint someones
reputation Karuna reiterates call for probe on Tiger
revenue sources (Island
: 29 December 2010).

Winning War Against
Terror, Human rights violations and War Crimes - An open
letter to Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the UN, Ms. Navi
Pillay, UN Hign Commissioner of Human Rights , Ms. Radhika
Coomaraswamy, Special representative of the UN SG for
Children in Armed Conflict by Warna Hettiarachchi, Canada (Sinhale
Hot News : 6 July 2010).

British
FM David Milliband is back to his third grade gimmicks against
Sri Lanka. Please look after your back yard without poking your
stinking fingers into Sri Lankan Affairs. Sri Lanka has
had enough of you and your white clan. We do not care you guys
anymore. So, Shut up.

None of
the three vessels carrying Sri Lankan Tamils, which had been
intercepted by the Canadians and Indonesians on high seas during
the past fortnight, originated in Sri Lanka.

Conspiracy
by Arms Manufacturing Western Nations

Western Arms Manufacturers need battlefields
to sell their Arms. An estimated 500,000 individuals dies in
small arms-conflict every year, approximately one death per
minute. It is estimated that yearly, over 1 trillion dollars are
spent on military expenditure worldwide.

Open
Letter to UN Secretary General: Ms. Hillary Clintons book
on Rape has Blank pages on Okinawa - by Bandu de Silva, Former
Sri Lankan Ambassador to France, and the Vatican (Asian
Tribune ; 17 Oct 2009).

What is really happening
in Sri Lanka today is that a blood thirsty racist group led by
some misled Tamils called LTTE is terrorizing against the Government
of Sri Lanka and its people irrespective of their ethnicity with an
intention of carving out a separate state. There is no conflict as
such between Sinhalese and Tamil communities in Sri Lanka. In fact,
the majority of the Tamil community lives in peace and harmony among
the Sinhalese population through out the country apart from the
Northern part of Sri Lanka. The entire Sinhalese and the Muslims
population who lived in the Northern area for centuries were either
killed or chased away completely by the LTTE Tamil Tiger terrorists.
At the moment, not a single Sinhalese or Muslim is living in Jaffna,
but, many thousands of Tamils are living in Colombo in peace with
the other communities. Based on 2001 census, the Tamil population in
Colombo district is 12.1% (see
2001 census). So, who is discriminated ? Tamils or Sinhalese? Do
you need more evidence ?

The United States' top intelligence
agency, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) says that the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is the most dangerous and deadly extremist organization in the
world. The official website of FBI in its tops story said that LTTE is far more
dangerous terrorists outfit than al Queda, Hezbullah or even HAMAS.
Read more...